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by PuckPip24601



Series: Escape Series [2]
Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: The Doctor is the Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:48:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 35,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25489528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PuckPip24601/pseuds/PuckPip24601
Summary: “Time Lord society was, as I was taught, created by three people. Rassilon, the great engineer, The Omega, the mind behind Gallifrey’s scientific advancements and-” she cut herself off suddenly, realisation dawning on her face and her entire body seemed to jolt with the force of the realisation that occurred to her, “Oh!”“Doctor? What is-” Yaz started but she was quickly cut off by the Doctor who flapped her hands at her desperately.“Yaz! I love you but shut up a minute. Let me think.” The human obediently fell quiet and they all watched as the Doctor began to pace suddenly, her eyes still wide before she dropped onto the steps leading further into the TARDIS, the realisation giving away to shock as she mumbled out her next words, “I’m the Other.”-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------SEQUEL TO ESCAPE.Now armed with the information that she knew Rassilon and Omega, back in the times of the Great Vampires, and even before, the Doctor knows what she must do. She needs to find Rassilon. She needs to find Omega. She needs to find out who she was and all it is that she forgot.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Omega, Thirteenth Doctor & Rassilon, Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan & Graham O'Brien & Ryan Sinclair
Series: Escape Series [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1835038
Comments: 38
Kudos: 89





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there! If you're new to this series i'd encourage reading the one before this one? I mean it's up to you but it might make it make more sense XD

“Doctor? What’s wrong? What was all that? How are we back here? Where did you all go?” The Doctor had stood in silence at the console, hands still clutching the monitor, the moment dragging on for a long time until Yaz’s voice finally broke it. The woman’s voice was gentle yet firm as she demanded an explanation. The Doctor was silent for another few seconds and she didn’t look away as she answered, her voice quiet.

“It was the Time Lords.”

“What?” They all looked confused, Graham’s eyebrows drawing together, “But you said they were all gone. We saw your planet.”

“It… they weren’t from now. They were from a very long time ago. It’s…” she took in a deep breath and turned to them, her expression guilty, “I have a lot I need to tell you, about what I found out from the Master, in the Matrix. About why he destroyed Gallifrey. It wasn’t a viable excuse in any way, but he did have a reason.”

“Which was?” Yaz asked, folding her arms as she frowned, clearly unhappy over the Doctor keeping secrets again and the Time Lord tried not to wince in regret. She had a hard time sharing things this time around.

“That I’m older than Time Lord civilisation itself, that my DNA played a hand in giving the original Gallifreyan people the ability to regenerate. And I just found out there that all those projections were my memories, that I was made to forget. They wiped my memories, for some reason, and somehow had me reloomed into a child and I grew up with no knowledge of who I used to be. I still have no actual knowledge, just what I’ve been shown. There’s still a disconnect there. Like they belong to someone else.” There was silence for a few beats after this as the Fam all tried to digest the information that they’d been given.

“So,” Yaz started before pausing and frowning, “you’ve just been… sitting on this information for a while, on your own?”

“What else was I supposed to do? With Gallifrey gone, I had no way of finding out anything else. There wasn’t really much any of you could do to help.”

“We could’ve been here for you, this is something big, having your pals around you could’ve helped.”

“I did have you around?” the Doctor countered with a raised eyebrow and a bemused smile, “it helped. I’m just not… big on sharing this time around, I guess. But I had you all close.”

“Not what I meant.” Yaz told her before sighing heavily as she relented slightly, “just… tell us these things. We care about you.”

“I’ll try.” The Doctor told her after a moment of guilty thought.

“So,” Graham decided to break the somewhat tense silence that followed, “what did you see when you and your other selves got transported away? Because you all disappeared and then there was another bright light and we were back in the TARDIS.”

“We ended up, I think, back on Gallifrey, I think that’s probably where we were the entire time. Just, Gallifrey from a long, long time ago. Back to the times of Rassilon and Omega.”

“Who?” Ryan asked.

“Time Lord society was, as I was taught, created by three people. Rassilon, the great engineer, The Omega, the mind behind Gallifrey’s scientific advancements and-” she cut herself off suddenly, realisation dawning on her face and her entire body seemed to jolt with the force of the realisation that occurred to her, “Oh!”

“Doctor? What is-” Yaz started but she was quickly cut off by the Doctor who flapped her hands at her desperately.

“Yaz! I love you but shut up a minute. Let me think.” The human obediently fell quiet and they all watched as the Doctor began to pace suddenly, her eyes still wide before she dropped onto the steps leading further into the TARDIS, the realisation giving away to shock as she mumbled out her next words, “I’m the Other.”

“The what?” Ryan asked, the Fam all gathering closer to the Time Lord who looked up to them with still wide eyes as she explained.

“There were the three architects, so I was taught, that had a hand in the Time Lords advancement as a species. Rassilon, Omega and the Other. The Other was only called that because nobody knew anything about him. All information about him was lost but we knew there was a third person. A stranger in the shadows.” She thought of that projected memory of Ruth. Of her creeping through the shadows as she helped those women escape from who she assumed to have been Rassilon.

“And you think you’re this Other?” Graham asked and she threw her hands up, somewhat distressed looking.

“Who else would I be? Rassilon and Omega said they’d wiped me from all records. Maybe all that remained was passed down through word of mouth. But over time the stories get diluted, bits get forgotten. All that remains is the knowledge that there was someone there, but they don’t remember anything else.”

“Is there anywhere you could go to find out more?” Yaz asked, moving to sit down next to the Time Lord who silently moved to lean her shoulder against the human’s.

“With Gallifrey gone, I don’t even know where I could go. It’s not as if there’s a whole bunch of Time Lords that got sent off…” this time she trailed off slowly and slowly broke out into rather manic looking grin that made the Fam slightly uncomfortable but she leaped to her feet and towards the console before they could even question her.

“What is it?” Yaz asked, watching the Time Lord as she threw herself around the console at breakneck speeds, clearly with a destination in mind.

“We need to find Rassilon.”

“How? You just said that all the other Time Lords were gone?” Ryan asked, clearly bewildered by the manic excitement for the Time Lord in front of him.

“Ah, well,” she paused her dash around the console for a second to hold up a finger to him, “the last time I was there, after I saved it and finally found it again, I exiled Rassilon from the planet. Him and the entire High Council.”

“How’d you manage that?” Graham asked, incredulous.

“Well, I ended the Time War, saved Gallifrey from total destruction by hiding it in a pocket universe.”

“What?” she stopped, blinking, completely bewildered for a moment before her face scrunched up in question.

“Have I never told you about the Time War?”

“No.”

“Huh. Well, there was a war. A huge one. All throughout time and space, between the Time Lords and the Daleks. They wiped out entire parts of the universe. Turned entire star systems into black holes just to try and get the edge over one another. It was bad. Eventually the Time Lords started to lose, the Daleks closed in on Gallifrey. At first… I destroyed them all. But then I found out, centuries later that I’d gone back and actually saved them. Trapped them away, Rassilon still at the helm cause the Time Lords had brought him back to try and get ahead in the war.”

“Thought you said he was an engineer.”

“And a war hero. He commanded and lead the war against the Great Vampires.”

“That,” Graham struggled for the word for a moment, “that thing that we had to run from back there?”

“Yeah. They infested the universe after Rassilon and Omega tried to create the first Eye of Harmony. They accidently tore a hole in the fabric of reality, during an apparent experiment gone wrong, and the Yssgaroth poured in and were basically unstoppable. The Time Lords wiped them all out.”

“So… one of the founders of the Time Lords, and they just let you kick him off the planet?”

“Why not? His plan to end the war involved wiping out all life itself. Letting Time Lords live on as bodyless souls. Minds trapped in eternal darkness with one another. My people might have been pompous and arrogant but the common people outside of the High Council wouldn’t have stood for that. The Time War was time locked. It went on for seemingly forever, I ended it. Saved them all and most life in the universe in doing so. Most of those men and women fought alongside me on the front lines. They trusted me.”

“You fought in it?” Yaz asked, seemingly surprised and the Doctor shrugged, looking back down to the console.

“Course I did. Why wouldn't I have?”

“It’s just… you’re always saying violence is never the answer. Seems kind of…” she trailed off but the sentiment was clear. The Doctor sighed and turned to her, her excitement turning to stone as an expression passed over her face that they’d never seen before. Memories of the time during the war flashing through her brain. She might forget a great many things, even in just the last two and a half thousand years, but the memories of that war would stay with her forever, as much as she wished they wouldn’t.

“Sometimes you have to. They were my people. And I fought to protect the rest of the universe as well. If we’d let the Daleks continue then they would’ve wiped out the universe. But they would’ve been much more ruthless about it than Rassilon ever could have been.” Silence stretched on for a long few seconds, as the Fam digested all the information they’d been fed. The Doctor shuffled uncomfortably as she waited for how they’d take it. “I didn’t even realise I’d never mentioned it before. It normally came up. Guess it’s just been so long; I don’t really think about it as much anymore.”

“So,” Graham said finally, “how do we find this Rassilon?” The Doctor smiled, entire body relaxing from a tenseness that she hadn’t realised she was holding it in, and she turned back to the console, hands all over the place as she explained.

“Now, when I sent Rassilon away, I didn’t really care enough at the time to check where he went, I just wanted him gone.”

“Well, that was smart.” She rolled her eyes at Graham’s sarcastic remark and sat her hand on the take-off lever with a smile.

“I know where to go to find someone who will know.”

“Let’s get a shift on then.” Yaz told her with a smile and the Doctor broke out in a grin and pulled the take-off lever, sending the TARDIS hurtling through the vortex towards its destination.


	2. The Invisible

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm in two halves about this chapter but here it is regardless XD Hope you guys enjoy it!

The TARDIS finally came to a stop and the Doctor stepped back from the console and turned towards the doors, looking suddenly hesitant despite her excitement just moments earlier. She still had one hand sitting on the console, internally debating the merits of this. Even if she did manage to find out what she wanted to know, what different would it make really? Did she want to know?

“Where are we?” Ryan asked, bringing her from her thoughts and she looked to him and answered, trying to keep the wavering from her voice as she did.

“Karn.”

“Karn?” she nodded and started walking towards the door.

“Karn. It’s a sister planet to Gallifrey. The Sisterhood on the planet moved here from Gallifrey eons ago. They stay here to protect the Sacred Flame.”

“And what’s that?” Graham asked, following her towards the door.

“It produces the elixir of life.” She said that casually and the three humans all stared at her. She merely smiled back, making them wonder if she was having them on or not.

“Right, and you think this Sisterhood will know where to find Rassilon?”

“Well, Ohila and some others had gone to Gallifrey when I first came back, said they wanted to see what I would do. If there’s anyone who knows where Rassilon went, it’s them. Ohila especially.” The Doctor began to pull open the door when she paused, a thought suddenly occurring to her as she twirled around to Ryan and Graham, her mouth already open as she tried to put together the words to explain this in her head, “Ryan, Graham, I’m sorry, but you’re both gonna have to stay here.”

“What do you mean we can’t come with. Why?” Ryan cried out indignantly and she sighed, an apologetic frown on her face.

“The Sisterhood of Karn don’t allow men into their temple. I was one of very few exceptions throughout my life, but this’ll be the first time I could go in without problem. You both being there will make this difficult and they’re just as likely to send you both away if I did bring you. I’m trying to get them to give me information here, I don’t wanna risk antagonising them before I’ve even asked, so, please. Just this once, stay put. I promise we’ll try not to be long.” They both looked unhappy about this situation, but both stood back and held their hands up in a quick surrender and the Doctor gave them a grateful smile. She looked to Yaz, who nodded to her, then pulled the door open and stepped outside, Yaz closing the doors behind them.

“So why don’t they allow men- woah…” Yaz trailed off, her question forgotten for the moment as she finally turned away from the TARDIS doors to look around them. She’d been expecting it to look like Gallifrey. Or, at least to look like what she’d imagined Gallifrey looked like before being destroyed by the Master. Instead Karn was a vast landscape of rocks and jagged clifftops. Torches were hung against the rock sides, leading them in until they heard a voice call out.

“Doctor,” Ohila was waiting outside the entrance to the temple for them, a lit torch in hand, the shadows cast across her face by the fire giving the paint on her face a more ethereal look that had Yaz stepping closer towards the Doctor. This whole place felt important. The woman ahead of them was dressed in deep red robes with ceremonial face paint on. Ohila tilted her head in greeting and the Doctor did the same back, stepping forward when the other woman held a hand out towards the cave entrance. “I apologise about Gallifrey. We heard what happened.” Her voice was gentle, offering genuine condolences that the Doctor appreciated.

“Thank you. I’m just glad he didn’t come here.”

“Why have _you_ come? I would have assumed you’d have found the Master by now on your own.”

“I did. Well, more like he found me but it’s not that. I need to find Rassilon.” This had Ohila pausing, her eyebrow raising at the request.

“Why would you need to find him? Even with Time Lords now in quite the edge of extinction as they are, I doubted you’d seek him out even if you were the last two in existence.”

“I think I’m the Other.” The words came out bluntly. This time Ohila just stared at her, clearly taken aback by the claim and the Doctor gave her a few moments to mull it over before she continued, “while I was with the Master, he showed me things, in the Matrix. Things like I’m older than Time Lord civilisation itself, that Time Lords got their ability to regenerate from me. I’m apparently not even Gallifreyan, I was found as a child. Part of something called the Division. Then, literally today, I met Rassilon and Omega, from all those years ago, they confirmed it. I knew them before, and they wiped my memories, and somehow I was reloomed, grew up again with no knowledge of who I used to be.”

“Quite a story.” Ohila managed to murmur out weakly and the Doctor frowned, shaking her head.

“Not a story. They’d…. they took me and some other version of me, trapped us in some kind of maze of forgotten memories, left out little hints. I _know_ it was me.” She paused for a second and stepped closer to Ohila, her voice pleading and her expression as desperate as she could allow it to be, despite her pride, “please. I need to know who I was. Rassilon’s the only one who’ll know.”

“How do you know you’re the Other?” Ohila asked after another few moments of silence where she thought over the Doctor’s words, clearly trying to decipher if the Doctor was just mistaken or if there was indeed complete merit to her words. This would be a great fact if it were true. “There were a great many others involved in the creation of Gallifrey, as much as Rassilon and Omega tried to insist it was only their work.”

“Just makes the most sense. The Other was wiped from the records, no one even knows their name. Rassilon and Omega told me they’d wiped me from all records. And… judging by what I’ve found out so far, from the Matrix, from those memories we were shown, I seemed to have had a huge part in Time Lord creation history. The Other must have had enough importance that their memory stuck on, even despite Rassilon and Omega’s meddling.”

“They say the Other played a major part in establishing the Sisterhood here on Karn.” Ohila had muttered after another few moments of tense silence while she mulled over the information she’d just been given, the words almost absentminded as she began leading the Doctor and her companion in towards the inner temple once again.

“That he was involved in the banishment of them from Gallifrey, along with Rassilon and Omega, when the Sisterhood plotted against Rassilon. I’ve heard the stories.” The Doctor’s tone came out bitter and Ohila shook her head.

“That would be what _you_ were told. The truth is quite different. Rassilon being as interested in keeping public favour as he was at the time. Rassilon murdered the Great Mother of the Pythia on Gallifrey, the leader of a religion which had its roots in Gallifreyan culture since the people were barely beginning to craft crude tools. He would make up any story to make it seem as though they’d turned on its people.”

“So what really happened?” Yaz asked.

“Well, we only have the stories. The words written in the ancient scrolls that still remain from the early days of the order on Karn, but they say that the Other helped the sisters who survived Rassilon’s slaughter to escape. Brought them here to Karn, where they hid for millennia before being discovered. By that point Rassilon was already losing public favour, after the war with the Yssgaroth and then the suspicious death of Omega, he couldn’t take another public scandal like slaughtering us. So we gave our aid in the fight against against Morbius. Proving our worth.” Ohila scoffed out the last words with a roll of her eyes, “tyrannical old fool.”

“The Other… helped them escape?” the Doctor asked, memories of the projection she’d seen of Ruth, her, helping those girls from the temple that the man in the cape was attacking the older woman at the head of the room. The Great Mother. Rassilon. The Other…

“Right from under Rassilon’s nose. He was too busy unveiling his and the Omega’s newest creations in order to kill off the Great Mother to pay attention to the shadows moving around him.”

“Rassilon created the Weeping Angels.” The Doctor’s face went pale at the thought of how he managed that.

“So,” Ohila stood at the alter of the inner temple once they came inside, her face turning deathly serious as she looked to the Doctor, “you must understand, Doctor, if your allegations for yourself are true, if you are indeed the Other, the Sisterhood would forever be indebted to you. But you must be right.”

“Well,” the Doctor countered, approaching her, “I have no way of knowing that until I find Rassilon. He’s the only one alive who truly knows who I was.”

“If he had a hand in the wiping of these memories, what makes so sure he’d even tell you the truth? We both know what a stubborn old fool he is.”

“I’ll make him.” A glint passed in the Doctor’s eye, the words coming out too quickly and sounding far more serious than the conversation called for and it sent a shiver down both other women’s spines at the insinuation.

“Why aren’t men allowed into the temple?” Yaz asked quietly after a moment, trying to dissipate the tension in the atmosphere and Ohila eyed her for a moment before answering.

“It’s an old rule. Dating back to the time of the Pythia on Gallifrey.”

“I don’t remember ever learning that there was a proper Pythia on Gallifrey.” The Doctor admitted, eyebrows drawn together, “I know there was the old religions but… still.”

“You think the High Council existed since the dawn of time itself? There was a time on Gallifrey before the Time Lords. Our order dates back to then. The Time Lords didn’t always use the Matrix for its prophecies. Don’t you think it strange that such an advanced civillisation would still look to prophecies and stories to defend its future? It had its own Pythia before Rassilon took over. The Time Lords may have got the gifts of regeneration from you, Doctor, but their abilities to see through time has always been a strictly Gallifreyan gift.” Ohila paused, looking the Time Lord over for a moment before seemingly deciding that she was going to say what she was thinking of saying, “you always have had a weak grasp of timelines, in comparison to your other Time Lord counterparts, no?”

“I just thought I was bad at it.”

“You are. But the fact that you have a grasp on them at all, in not being Gallifreyan, speaks volumes for how long you’ve been on the planet.” At the confusion on the Doctor’s face the woman sighed, sitting herself down on her throne as she tried to explain, “There was an Old Priest, back on the early days of Time Lords having regeneration, and he was cast out because of the dissolution of the old religious orders. He spent all his time amongst another species, and every time he would regenerate, each incarnation would become more and more non Gallifreyan as he did so. Each time, more and more foreign DNA was incorporated into the process. It’s much the same of stories of Time Lords being cast out into the abyss of space. As each new body tries to evolve into something twisted, and strange, that can cope within the vacuum of space, until they ran out of regenerations or were finally brought back into an oxygenated environment.”

“So… you’re saying that, if I am the Other, if I have been on Gallifrey for that long, I might be full Gallifreyan by now anyway? That every regeneration, since I apparently no limit, I would just keep incorporating more and more Time Lord DNA until eventually I was fully Gallifreyan.”

“It is just a theory. But every test and scan ever done of you Doctor has shown you as a full blood and body Time Lord. It’s the only thing that may truly make sense.”

“Regardless of all this,” the Doctor seemed quick to try and change the subject, sighing heavily, “we won’t properly know until I know who I was. Do you know where Rassilon is?”

“I have an idea of where he is. It’s not a place easily gotten to, then, when has that ever stopped you? I cannot guarantee you that that’s where he is.”

“I understand. Thank you, Ohila.”

“I hope you’ll return, let me know what you find out.”

“Providing I find out anything at all. I will.”


	3. The Truth of Silence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not my longest chapter and I apologise for that but I hope you guys still enjoy it <3

Trying to get to the end of the universe was a hassle unto itself. Trying to pinpoint one lone bowship hiding out within the endless darkness of space at the end of the universe was even harder. But it wasn’t impossible. This was what she explained to her companions once she and Yaz had made it back to the TARDIS. The Doctor had thrown open all scanners in order to search as the TARDIS flew across the universe.

“So… what makes you think this Rassilon is gonna tell you anything? Especially after you had him kicked off your planet?” Graham asked her as she stood at the monitor, eyes scanning each frequency closely for even a hint of something being there. This close to the end of everything, there weren’t even any stars to get in the way. Just an endless vast expanse interrupted by nothing except the slow deaths of any planets which held out without life on top of them, all of which had died out millions of years ago. It would just be the TARDIS and Rassilon, wherever he was hiding. Of course, there were others throughout the years that had taken refuge at the end of the universe, other immortal beings who lived to it, but the Doctor had been sure to try and remember them all, exclude their unique signatures.

“I don’t,” She admitted, “I don’t know if he’ll tell me anything at all. If anything, I think he’ll make it very hard for me. Probably won’t want to admit to anything he’s done, especially if it pertains to me.”

“Then why go?”

“Because what other choice do I have? There’s no one else alive from back then. As far as I know, he is the only person still alive that knows anything about who I was. I don’t have any other option.” She looked back to the screen, her last words muttered bitterly and quietly, “I’d rather leave him to rot out here, crumble along with the planet.”

“Who is he?” Yaz asked her, coming to stand next to her at the console, “to you. Usually you don’t hold so much…”

“Hatred.” The Doctor finished for her easily. “In reality, I don’t know who he is to me. But in this lifetime? He was a war hero, turned tyrant. Well, fondly remember tyrant, brought back and then they remembered that he was a tyrant, and that there was a reason the Time Lords got rid of him in the first place. So, this time, I did it for them.” Silence lingered for a time after she spoke, the Doctor continuing to search as the Fam all looked amongst each other.

“Suppose it’s got to be different upending a tyrant on your own planet, rather than on others.” Ryan asked.

“Not really. A tyrant’s a tyrant.” Finally there was a blip on the screen and the Doctor instantly pulled it up and brought the TARDIS towards it so that the screen could bring up what was outside and the Doctor let out a heavy breath at the sight of the huge Bowship in the distance.

“That looks like the one of the ships we saw back in those projections. That one where the woman regenerated.” Yaz said, peering over the Doctor’s shoulder at it, “is he in there?”

“The Bowships were one of Rassilon’s inventions. Makes sense.” The Doctor moved to begin flying the TARDIS into the Bowship and as soon as she landed she rushed towards the doors, calling back to her companions as she went, not giving them much of a choice to argue as she darted out of the ship, “Stay here!” She stepped out of the TARDIS and found herself standing across from the former leader of the Time Lords in the spacious front deck of the last of his Bowships. The man no longer clad in the finery that he never would have been seen without back on Gallifrey. His robes a simple mangy looking red thing. His skin pale from his time away from the many suns above Gallifrey, stuck out here in the darkness with nothing but the artificial light above him.

“Doctor,” he snarled out angrily, lifting his hand with the hand of Omega still clad on it and pointing it at her threateningly, “you dare come here. You dare show your face to me. After all you have done!”

“That Hand is just a bunch of fancy metal without the Eye of Harmony behind it to power it. So, don’t even try.” He growled out to her, angered over her blasé tone and refusal to cower at him. He did drop his hand though, lowering himself into the seat at the head of the room, slowly, tiredly. “I want to know about what you made me forget.”

“You couldn’t even keep the planet alive a full century after you forced me from its surface. My people are dead because of your incompetence. And yet you come here and think I’ll tell you anything.”

“I’m the Other, aren’t I?” Rassilon’s face didn’t so much as flinch but his forceful non reaction was answer enough and the Doctor let out a heavy breath, “who was I?”

“You think I’ll tell you anything? You think too highly of yourself if you think you could make me do anything. I left Gallifrey on the will of its people, not yours. I will say nothing.” The Doctor gritted her teeth in frustration in her mouth, her jaw clenching as she tried to think of anything she would have over his head to force him into speaking.

“Tecteun. What happened to her?” The mention of that name made him tense and the Doctor quirked her head this time at the visible reaction, “tell me. Is that to do with why you wiped my memories?”

“I don’t know.” Rassilon heaved out a heavy breath. The Doctor scowled this time, growing angry at the apparent weak excuse.

“Oh, come on, no way you’d just _forgotten_. Or don’t know. The ‘all great and powerful Rassilon’ and he doesn’t know something?”

“Omega knew.” He snapped, “Omega worked as Tecteun’s protégé in her labs and on furthering Gallifrey as a scientifically led society. One day they left for some project, Tecteun’s apparent ‘life’s work’. Only Omega returned and she never spoke of what happened that day, or what happened to Tecteun. So, if you wish to know _that_ , Omega is the one to ask.”

“But Omega is dead.”

“That,” Rassilon drawled out with a dismissive motion of his hand, “is not my concern. If I owe my old friend nothing else, it is that the rest of this information dies with me. And that you never find out. That those memories in your head stay hidden forever.” The Doctor’s head, which had been hanging in dejection and frustration at his words, suddenly shot up at that last sentence. Rassilon seemed to realise his slip up as well because his mouth abruptly snapped shut, his eyes wide with panic.

“Hidden?” she asked him, repeating the word he’d used back to him, a smile suddenly appearing on her face, “hidden?” she said once more, “not lost.”

“A misuse in wording, that is all. You cannot get those memories back.” He was backtracking and she knew it.

“You didn’t say that, you said hidden. That means they’re still in there? Now that I think about it, there’s no way you could just erase that many memories. Even if it was a human lifetime, you’d never be able to get rid of everything, let alone a Time Lord one.”

“It was Omega’s work. The memories are gone. And if they’re not, then they’re locked away where you will never reach them. Omega was one of the greatest minds in history, even you would have problems overcoming that.”

“Just watch me.” The two glared at one another from across the room, there had been no hesitation in the Doctor’s response, a hard edge to her voice. “And when I have gotten those memories back, when I remember everything that you made me forget, just know Rassilon, I will come back for you.” She turned after her threat, refusing to look back to him as she walked back to her ship, now armed with a promise and the knowledge that all those memories might still exist within the confines of her mind.


	4. An Attempt To Think And See

The Doctor burst back into the TARDIS in a flurry of movement and almost excitement, confusing the humans inside who all jumped in surprise at the sudden motions.

“What did he say?”

“More what he didn’t say. He doesn’t want to tell me anything. But I am the Other. And my memories aren’t lost.” She beamed around to them, “apparently they’re hidden. Somewhere in the depths of my mind, they’re still in there. I have no clue how to retrieve them, Omega was the mind behind it, but they’re still there. I can get them back.”

“How?” Yaz grinned, excited for her friend finding out this information. The Doctor paused at the question though, suddenly going still as though the mere thought of it was jarring.

“I don’t know. Maybe Ohila could think of something?”

“Suppose she also asked you to tell her if you were the Other or not? Might be worth a quick trip back, even just for that. Maybe they have information from that far back, they be more willing to share it since you are actually the other, since technically you helped them even exist.”

“And maybe this time you could ask if we could come out of the TARDIS?” Graham asked and the Doctor smiled softly in amusement and shrugged.

“I’ll see what I can do.” She moved back towards the console and brought them back to Karn, this time motioning for Yaz to stay behind in the ship as she made her way out the doors. She was in the main worship room in the Karn temple, Ohila on her throne and the other sisters of the sisterhood were gathered around her.

“Doctor?” Ohila spoke as she got to her feet, the question lingering in the air and the Doctor could only nod as she stepped fully from the TARDIS. The smaller woman’s eyes widened in wonder and she took a step towards the Doctor, then sunk to her knees in front of her. The sisters that had gathered with her in the room followed her lead, sinking to their knees and bowing their heads in front of her. “Then we are in your debt, forever.”

“I don’t agree in leaving debts. You’ve helped me more than enough throughout the years to more than make up for it.” The Doctor was quick to pull Ohila to her feet, clearly uncomfortable with the worship towards her. “Though, if you could do me one more favour, I’d be happy to owe you?”

“You may name it. Though you may not wish it, Doctor, the sisterhood is in your debt. We would not exist without you. The elixir of life would not be within our grasp still, twice over, because of you.” The Doctor’s face was pinched in uncomfortable annoyance, but she let it go for now. She did need something from them.

“Rassilon said that my memories aren’t lost. That they’re merely hidden, somewhere in the depths of my mind. How I would find them, though, I don’t know.”

“This depends, of course on the method used to store these memories away.” Ohila motioned her hand towards the other sisters who got to their feet and began to clear the room, all giving the Doctor a respectful nod as they went. The Doctor just awkwardly nodded back before looking to Ohila for the other woman to continue, “you know the sisterhood has abilities similar to that of the Time Lords, mentally? We also have plenty of our own specific ones. We have the ability to open up someone’s mind and allow them and others to walk through their memories. Perhaps you may find something hidden away like that?”

“Worth a shot.” The Doctor agreed with a smile then paused and glanced back to the TARDIS, “oh, erm. My friends, I want them to come.”

“Of course.”

“Some of them are men.”

“Humans?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I will allow it. Human males, simple minded as creatures come across this universe.” The Doctor frowned disapprovingly at the woman’s words as she stepped towards the TARDIS again.

“Hey, that’s not nice. Not nearly true either. Graham and Ryan are brilliant.” She pushed the TARDIS door open and stuck her head in, grinning at her companions as she motioned her head out towards the doors, “come on you lot, out you come.”

“You manage to convince them to say yes, then?” Ryan asked and the Doctor shrugged with a mild awkward expression.

“Well, other than you being human, yeah. Psy-null. No threat.”

“Well, that’s good, ain’t it? Not trying to be threatening to anyone.” Graham joked as the humans all stepped from the TARDIS, the Doctor pulling the door shut behind them.

“Welcome to the Sisterhood of Karn.” Ohila greeted them but her attention ultimately remained on the Doctor, “I shall inform the sisters of what is needed. I will send for you when we are prepared.” And with that she left the room, leaving the four adventurers to speak for a moment.

“This place is nice. What’re they preparing for you?” Graham asked the Doctor who moved to step in closer to them and encourage a slight huddled circle amongst them.

“The Sisterhood, like Time Lords, are a telepathic race. However, with the divide of being from being on different planets for tens of thousands of years, they’re version of telepathy left them able to do things that my people could only dream about. They could use their joined mental powers to teleport people and things anywhere. Ohila tells me they have an ability to look into people’s minds, let them walk through their own memories, them and others.”

“So, we can help?” Yaz asked and the Doctor seemed startled even just at the suggestion.

“I suppose you could.” The Doctor told her, then noted the agreeing expressions on Ryan and Graham’s faces and pointed at them, a serious expression crossing her face, “If you do, ground rules. No poking about in there unless I give you strict permission. Entering someone’s mind is something really serious. I don’t care how much your curiosity nags at you, it’s one of the biggest abuses of privilege you could have with a person. It can be quite an intimate thing, going into someone’s mind. I’m willing to let you all come with, but I need you all to promise me you won’t do anything to make me regret it.”

“We promise.” Yaz told her gravely. Ryan and Graham nodding in agreement as they responded.

“Yeah, course.” Ryan said.

“Course we won’t do anything, what do you think we are? Stupid or something?” Graham half joked slightly. A sister with her hood up stepped through the door before the Doctor could reply and they all turned to look at her.

“We are ready.” She informed them, giving a nervous looking courtesy to the Doctor before she turned and they followed after her as she made her way down the stone hallways of the Sisterhood’s temple, leading them further inside the mountain the temple was carved into. She lead them into another room that was only about half the room of the throne room they’d just left, with a big sunken circle in the floor of the centre of the room that each of the sisters, Ohila included, were sat on their knees around the outside of.

“Sit within the circle.” Ohila instructed them, “equal space apart, with your backs to my sisters on the outside.” They group all did as instructed and the Fam all followed the Doctor’s lead as the woman closed her eyes and allowed the sister behind her to reach up and press the tips of fingers to each of the Doctor’s temples and ease the woman into leaning back against the edge of the circle and against her lap. They too were all eased back into a lap with fingers placed against their temples.

“Something supposed to be happening?” Graham asked hesitantly only for the sisters to begin a low hum and chant under their breaths, their own minds linking up before they reached for the Doctor’s and forced whatever psychic abilities that were dormant in the human’s minds to drag their consciousnesses into the shared space that they created.

><><><><><><><

Stepping into the Doctor’s mind was strange, but Yaz also likened it to simply opening a door and stepping through. The doorway was stiff, after a long time of misuse but eventually it opened and Yaz and the others stepped through into what looked to be the TARDIS console room. The Doctor was stood there, waiting on them.

“I figured it’d be… different somehow. Feels solid. How’s that?” Graham asked as he sat his hand on the console and the Doctor smiled with a shrug.

“I know what it feels like. Time Lord brains, much better than human ones. Your brains run with short term and long-term memory. Loads of things get forgotten every second you’re alive. For Time Lords? It’s all kind of mixed into one. We remember everything. Or, we’re meant to, at least.”

“So where are your memories then?” Yaz asked, already ready for this.

“Gonna be a long walk.” The Doctor warned them.

“We already do a lot of running,” Ryan countered before pausing, “also, we’re just projections in your head right? Can we even get tired?”

“Yeah. Being mentally tired is a thing. Come on you lot.” She turned and lead them up the steps that normally would lead into a corridor that lead further into the TARDIS towards their other rooms and the kitchen but now lead into a vast endless corridor. It was twice as wide as the usual corridors on the TARDIS and the walls, rather than their usual gold and black designs, they seemed a blank white, almost translucent. When the Doctor stepped into the room, however, they suddenly lit up, quick glances of faces showed up behind the translucent nature of the walls. At the start of this, it showed them and Ohila, standing around the Doctor. It showed them what they’d just left. “Like I said,” the Doctor told them with a smile, motioning her head down the corridor, “gonna be a long walk. Over 2000 years.”

And walk they did. It felt like they were walking for hours but the Doctor cheerfully informed them that barely any time would be passing in the outside world, they’d probably only been under for about 15 minutes. They walked past all their adventures with the other Doctors. They walked past the last moments of Gallifrey, watching the Doctor facing off with the Master. They walked past all the adventures they’d had with the Doctor. All the way back to the first time they met the Doctor on that train. And they got a glimpse, with the brief flashes of memories that appeared in the walls, of just how far she’d fallen before she’d hit the train and saved them from the Gathering Coil creature.

“How’d you survive that?” Graham asked and the Doctor merely shrugged to him.

“Regeneration. Gives you a little leeway of healing for a few hours. Honestly, I barely felt it.” She stopped suddenly and looked ahead, the others pausing with her and all looking to see what she was staring at. It was a wall, it seemed mostly translucent like the ones on either side of them but this time nothing could be seen playing throughout it.

“What do we do now?” Graham asked, looking to the Doctor who had paused at the wall to inspect it with great interest. Instead of responding she simply pushed a hand through and grinned at her companions over her shoulder.

“Come on you lot, it’s just a separation divider, keeps everything in a more organised fashion. White haired Scotsman. Let’s get a shift on.” She stepped through the wall and, with one glance thrown to each other, the Fam all followed her through.


	5. A Walk Through Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for disappearing last week guys! My brain was just refusing to want to write anything. I just couldn't find the energy to write a single thing, let alone just this chapter, but it's here now!

“Ah,” Yaz heard the Doctor’s puzzled voice even before she’d fully stepped through the separation wall and so she’d already turned her head to search for her as she made it all the way through the other side.

“How long were you falling for before you hit that train?” Graham asked, voice audibly concerned, glancing to the wall next to him before he followed the others through the white translucent wall they’d all gone through. Though it looked translucent, he couldn’t actually see them once they went through. The images flashing up next to him showed the Doctor being thrown from the TARDIS at a height that made him queasy feeling. Quite a feat when he figured that he was just a projection of his own mind right now. He stepped through after the others and paused when he noticed the Doctor had somehow changed clothes. Gone were her rainbow shirt and jacket and slightly too short trousers. Now she was wearing something similar to the suit she’d worn when they’d first met. But it was inlayed in red silk and had a very magician-y feel to it. Dark trousers and black boots completed the look. “When did you have time to change?” He asked incredulously and the Doctor smiled in amusement as she looked down over herself.

“My brain’s just compensating for the changed face. Altering what it can to coincide with the change in face and body without just making me look completely like the version of me that wore this.” She turned her head to look at the wall next to them and the Fam caught sight of an older looking man, dressed in the torn clothes that the Doctor had been wearing when they met, stumbling around the TARDIS, looking like he was making some kind of speech. Who to they had no clue but still.

“That’s you?” Ryan asked and the Doctor nodded, stepping in close to the wall and pressing a hand against it. The picture on the wall suddenly became clearer and a Scottish voice could be heard as the man spoke.

“ _Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind. Doctor, I let you go._ ” He closed his eyes, looking to be at peace with a small smile on his face, and then exploded in a huge burst out bright golden light and the Fam all gaped at it.

“What the hell happened?” Graham exclaimed.

“Regeneration.” She told them simply with a shrug, turning to start walking once more.

“That’s regeneration?” Graham asked, hurrying to catch up and walk in line with her.

“Yeah. What did you think it was? Every single cell in my body basically explodes into another one.”

“I dunno what I thought it was. Not that, anyway.”

“So, how does it work exactly? You’re still you, right?” Yaz asked as they walked past memories of Bill and the Doctor and another older man and a man in uniform.

“Yeah. Same person, same memories, same feelings. Same Doctor, man or woman.” They kept going, on and on. They saw the Doctor with another small bald man fighting off Cybermen, alongside another Cyberman? They saw the Doctor standing across from that same Cyberman and two other people. A man and a woman. “Say hello to the Master, twice over.”

“They’re both the Master?”

“Yup.”

“Isn’t it bad if multiple versions of the same person show up at once?” Ryan questioned and the Doctor nodded.

“Oh yeah. But you get a bit of give and take in these situations, sometimes as time travellers it can happen. Normally the timelines will snap back into place and you’re made to forget about whatever happened until it’s safe for you to do so.”

“So, all those other versions of you that we met before, they won’t remember it?”

“But I do now. All up here.” She pointed to her head and then motioned further down the hallway and started walking, “come on then.” As she walked, she patted down her pockets and let out a delighted sound as she reached into her inside pocket and pulled out a pair of sunglasses. The Fam were mostly distracted by watching the fleeting glances of memories that appeared in the walls, showing Bill and the same small bald man. The female version of the Master with the Doctor in the TARDIS. Different giant creatures and aliens and adventures that they got to see moments of. They also spotted a lot of images of the Doctor in what seemed to be a lecture theatre and Graham pointed to one of them.

“Were you a teacher or something?”

“Oh, yeah. Spent a couple decades staying on Earth as a university professor. Had to guard a vault. It’s where I met Bill.” Walking further back, passed all the years spent staying on Earth the memories strayed into something infinitely more personal. Not that the Doctor reacted all that much, simply strolling along past all the memories with a curly haired woman. They were intimate. Not in the sense to be untoward but just intimate in a sense of love. There were so many of them. Literal years of a life between the two and the Fam glanced to the Doctor, waiting for her to explain who the woman was. She clearly wasn’t intending to. They looked between one another, each of them motioning for the other to say something and finally it was Graham who took the initiative and spoke up, his tone forcefully joking, hoping to keep her from getting angry for him asking.

“Hey, Doc?”

“Yeah Graham?” She called back to him over her shoulder.

“Who’s this then?” he motioned to the woman in the memories and the Doctor looked over them, smiled softly then glanced back to them and replied, casually as can be.

“My wife.” Then she turned and continued walking leaving the Fam to gape after her for a moment, shocked because that was maybe the last reply they’d expected.

“You’re married?” Yaz exclaimed.

“I was.” Her voice sounded much sadder this time, regret filled as she brushed her fingers across one of the memories, of the two of them stood before a backdrop of two towers staring at one another.

“ _So, assuming tonight is all we have left,_ ”

“ _I didn’t say that_.”

“ _How long is a night on Darillium?_ ”

“ _Twenty four years._ ” The Doctor in the memory smiled and the woman, his wife, laughed tearily and mock glared up at him, the expression melting away easily as she spoke.

“ _I hate you_.”

“ _No, you don’t._ ” They both turned at stared at one another and the picture faded away, washed away by the pale whiteness that permeated all the walls surrounding them. Like the Doctor had shown all she wanted to show of this and hid the rest of it away from their viewing eyes. They wanted to ask more about her, but it seemed the Doctor was content to have said all she was going to say. They were already walking through her memories; this was already seemingly more than she was every going to have shown them in the first place. None of them wanted to push their luck. They kept walking, eventually catching glimpses of a brunette woman with big brown eyes then they caught flashes of a planet covered in red sand and shots of the Doctor in what looked to be a stand off across from a line of people in huge red robes with big decorative looking collars that came up and around their heads. The skyline of the city in the background, however, is what drew Yaz’s attention. She recognised it.

“Is this what Gallifrey looked like before?” Yaz stopped before the memory, looking in at the glimpses that she was afforded. The Doctor stopped to look in at the memory and her gaze hardened as she turned her head away again with a nod.

“Yeah. Come on.”

“What’s down there?” Ryan asked, pointing down the dark corridor that so suddenly veered off course from the main hallway. He caught glimpses of mechanical gears and a figure shrouded in sheets with flies buzzing around, and a huge wall of what looked like diamond, but the Doctor was quick to usher them all past it.

“Sometimes, I go to places that exist outside of time, my brain just categorises it in these corridors off to the side. Not worth exploring down. Come on, we’re here to do something else.”

“But what is it?”

“It doesn’t matter.” The Doctor was clearly trying not to get snappy as she ushered the young man further down the corridor. What they walked passed now was walls and walls of the brunette woman with the big eyes. Passed images of big creatures covered in suckers, of Vikings and daleks. More of that female version of the Master, backed with cybermen. All the way eventually to this eyebrowed version of the Doctor riding a t-rex.

“Who’s this girl?” Yaz asked.

“It’s Clara. Do you need to know everyone?”

“No. Just asking.” She got defensive, feeling entirely brushed off for just asking a question. Then again, that wasn’t new when it came to the Doctor. Yaz felt like she should probably have been entirely used to it by this point.

There was another translucent barrier in their way ahead of them, and this time the Doctor didn’t hesitate before walking through. The Fam weren’t far behind her and when they turned to look at her she was now clad in a tweed jacket and bow tie and Yaz grinned, this time her tone coming through teasingly.

“What kind of things have you been wearing?”

“What?” the Doctor argued somewhat playfully defensive against the ribbing, “bowtie are cool.” She huffed softly, giving the article of clothing a quick tug, as if to make her point, and then continued walking and the others followed after her with matching grins. The memories for the next little while showed a more elderly looking man than the last, steadily growing younger all within the one snowy place.

“You can age?” Ryan asked, surprised.

“If I’m in one place for long enough. Yeah, I can. Dying of old age, who would have thought. I stayed on Trenzalore to protect my people, it was the only way to save them at the time. To begin getting them back.” She scoffed humourlessly, “fat lot of good that did, I suppose.” She motioned suddenly to that version of herself in the memories on the wall, now young looking in a purple twirly looking coat, “that’s me. Properly, before I got all old. I missed being young, so many aches and pains.”

“You’re telling me.” Graham scoffed in good humour, “at least you can go back to being young again. Not all of us are so lucky.”

“True, sorry Graham.” This version of the Doctor seemed very twirly, racing around the place with Clara, battling creatures on submarines and facing off against entire planets. The Doctor’s wife seemingly continued making irregular appearances the further back they went. Eventually Clara stopped showing up, and it was just the Doctor, and then a redheaded woman and another brunette man took up a majority of the memories going forward. Yaz watched images of stone angels flash across the walls, the redheaded woman crying but moved on to continue walking, “they’re called Amy and Rory.”

There were years worth of adventures with these two, spanning on and on and on, again with the Doctor’s wife making more regular appearances until finally the wall showed the Doctor in the memories, dressed in a ripped pinstripe suit, sitting across from a little redheaded girl in a kitchen dipping what looked to be fish fingers into a bowl of custard and very close after that there was another wall ahead of them that they stepped through.

The long brown coat over the pinstripes the Doctor was now in, looked better on the tall lanky man they caught glimpses of on the wall, if for no other reason than, even though they were made to fit her, the coat made her look tiny.

“So, did you just have one outfit per face?”

“No, I had usually a few more. Twirly purple coat for the me in the bowtie, I had a hoodie I wore a lot with the me with the eyebrows. This version had a blue suit he would wear from time to time. I got better at changing it up as I got older. Some of the things I’ve worn in the past…” the Doctor paused, a realisation hitting her as she looked back to the Fam and then back down the corridor leading further into her past, pursing her lips for a moment in thought.

“What?” Yaz asked.

“You’lll get a laugh out of it. Keep in mind, I deeply regret some of them now.” She sighed heavily and motioned for them to come with.

“Oh, _you_ actually think it’s bad?” Yaz grinned, “can’t wait to see this.”

The Doctor paused, her smile fading away as she stared up at the picture of the blonde woman that drifted throughout the translucent wall. She had a pretty smile, a toothy thing with her tongue peeking through. The Doctor reached up a hand to press it against the wall and the picture sparked into life, a south London voice speaking up as the young woman laughed.

“ _Blimey, how much have you had? 2005, January the first._ ” This spikey uppy hair version of the Doctor in pinstripes struggled to smile back at her, hunched painfully against the wall he was propped up against, with tears in his eyes.

“ _2005_.” He said the year wistfully, like it meant something, “ _Tell you what. I bet you’re going to have a really great year._ ” He sounded like he was close to tears but was trying to hold them back and sound normal. The woman smiled at him.

“Yeah? See you.” She gave him a wave and he gave her a little wave back and watched her the entire time as she made her way inside the block of flats nearby before he pushed himself away from the wall and the memory faded back into the translucent whiteness with faded pictures that it had been before.

“Who was she?” Graham asked and the Doctor turned her head to glance around to him and shrugged forlornly.

“Her name was Rose.” Passed that they would see images of a different red head woman, older looking. They even caught a quick glimpse of Jack Harkness somewhere within the walls. They saw more Judoon, another glimpse of the Doctor’s wife in what looked to be a spacesuit, a giant wasp, and people that looked like they belonged in ancient Rome. After her there was a pretty dark-skinned woman and they caught a decent number of glimpses of what looked to be a younger version of the male version of the Master they’d seen. Beyond that there were more stone angels, a giant skeletal scorpion looking creature, a giant head in a jar and what seemed to be actual witches. Next they saw Rose once again, a glimpse of her screaming as they was dragged towards a bright white light, Daleks and Cybermen, a literal devil, strange creatures with tentacles on their faces, big bat like creatures and werewolves and even cat people. So many images of just the two of them, the Doctor and Rose, just grinning at one another, holding hands as they walked about.

The next wall led them through to the Doctor in a green sweater and black leather jacket and the man in the memories looked slightly more middle aged with a shaved head. With this version of the Doctor, Jack Harkness, a younger looking version, was much more involved, the three of them embarking on big adventures until it was again just Rose and the Doctor.

At the next wall the Doctor stopped. The kind of stopping that just screamed that something was wrong, and she was suddenly nervous. Scared about something.

“Doctor?” Yaz asked gently, “are you alright?”

“Fine. Just… can we go quickly through this next bit? Not really worth stopping to have a look.”

“What is it?”

“The war.”

“The Time War?”

“Yeah.” She took in a heavy deep breath, squared her leather clad shoulders and then stepped through the next separation wall.

The Doctor was then clad in aged looking clothing. Aged and worn and like it had been through lifetimes of abuse but somehow managed to hold on, and they supposed it had. A quick glimpse to the walls around them showed that the memories of the time war came less often, the translucent memories were even more faded, as though the Doctor was trying her hardest to smother them before they even made it to the surface to be seen. There were glimpse of Daleks and Time Lords and a great many explosions and even blackholes bursting into creation.

They continued walking for what felt like hours, with the Doctor’s changing outfits every time they stepped through one of those translucent dividers giving them a big enough laugh. From the question marks to whatever monstrosity that that patchwork outfit was afterwards, then the cricket outfit and the huge scarf that she’d actually had to gather up to not trip over as she walked. ‘ _Was pretty tall this time around. Guess my mind kept the scarf the same length_ ’. They’d gotten even more of a laugh out of the opera cape and the Doctor had occasionally blew into a recorder as they trundled through the life of her second self, watching adventures with yetis and life size toy soldiers. The one the Doctor identified as her original self was an old man at first, travelling around with another array of different people until it was just him and a young looking woman, barely out of her teens if she even was. The Doctor smiled at the sight of her.

“My granddaughter, Susan.”

“You had a granddaughter?” Yaz asked, surprised.

“You had a child to have a granddaughter?” Graham asked right afterwards, just as shocked and it’s like the thought hadn’t even occurred to the younger two but once that was said they doubled down on their surprise and the Doctor shrugged with a smile.

“Yeah. I was married and everything. Wasn’t any good at it, mind you. Marriage was always more of an arranged thing on Gallifrey and I was always too much of a renegade to really be any decent at the whole staying in one place and raising kids to be the same strict watchers that Time Lords were meant to be. Susan was more like me than anyone else, she came with me when I ran away.”

“What happened to her?”

“She fell in love. She found someone and I couldn’t begrudge her that.” She took in another deep breath and motioned her head, “come on.” They stepped further on, passed the Doctor’s original travels with Susan, passed those years spent trying to stay on Gallifrey with a family, further on into the Doctor’s day in schools and one memory of two young boys had the Doctor motioning to it and speaking in an almost nostalgic tone, “meet the Doctor and Master 1.0.”

“That was you and the Master?” Yaz asked, standing in front of the memory of the two of them as young boys, racing each other through a huge red grass field, both giggling in that carefree way that only children could. The Doctor could only shrug in response.

“Both of us did say we were old friends.”

“Just thought it was in a sarcastic way, you know? Like you’d met years ago and always been enemies. Not in the ‘childhood best friends’ kind of way.”

“Yeah, well. Both of us were the only ones so desperate to get away. Planned to run away, see the stars. Problem is, I wanted to see, and he wanted to destroy. Friendship kind of fell apart after that. Eventually I kept getting in the way of that goal and well, you’ve seen what happened, plus almost 3000 years.”

When they final reached the end of the timeline they were met with a solid wall. The translucent nature of the others before it was nothing like this one. It was solid white, with no visible way through. The Doctor approached it slowly, looking somewhat disheartened.

“Thought there’d be a more obvious way through.” She sighed heavily, running her hands through her hair as she tried to think of what to do to get through this. “Information has slipped through before, now that I know what I’m looking for. Back in my fourth body, the one with the scarf, I remember battling Morbius in a mind-bending contest. It showed other faces that weren’t mine when it began flicking through my past lives. I’d just thought it was a trick at the time, Morbius was known for his mental games. Also he was a giant brain for a long while right before then.”

“He was a giant brain?” Graham asked, clearly disgusted by the thought and the Doctor grinned.

“Us Time Lords are a robust lot.” She moved to lean a hand against the wall only to let out a yelp as she simply fell right through it.

“Doctor!” Yaz called out and reached out a hand to the wall only to find it completely solid for her. Ryan and Graham found the same thing. “Doctor are you alright?!”


	6. The Other Me

The Doctor hit the ground on the other side of the wall with an ‘oof’ and a solid thump and a yelp. She was back in her usual rainbow get up, the jacket have flown up and over her head and she sat up, tossing it back the right way down and jumped finding another person crouched in front of her. His brown eyes filled with a gentle concern but also failingly repressed excitement. He was somewhat young looking, with a shock of ginger hair shoved under a flat cap that he was quick to remove and stuff into the pocket of his tweed looking old fashioned suit.

“Hello, are you alright?” he was strongly Irish and as the Doctor looked at him she couldn’t help but feel like she’d seen him before, her eyebrows drew together, her head tilting as she tried to think of where.

“Yeah.” She told him quickly and as she pushed herself to her feet, he also got himself up, mirroring her movements like he was still in a slight disbelief over her being here. “Are you…” she trailed off, unsure on how to proceed here. She’d not been expecting to find him here. She’d thought it would just lead to another hallway of memories, not another person. It was a strange prospect, to have someone else inside your head, sharing that space with you. Especially when they were meant to be you as well. The room they were in was less hallway and more big rotunda with pillars at regular intervals and white translucent walls which were surprisingly calm for the moment.

“The Doctor?” he smiled, head tilting in agreement, “you? Yes, to both. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“You know me?” she asked him, still half in shock and he just nodded to her.

“I am you. I may not be able to leave this place, but I could see out.”

“You could see everything?”

“Well, I’ve watched when I could, mostly checking in when I could feel like maybe I should. I kept trying to slip you clues, little messages so that you’d think something was up, but you didn’t seem to catch on, until recently. I’ve just been waiting.”

“You were here the whole time…”

“I helped where I could as well. That battle of minds you had, I fed you some other faces, spreading your memory banks until you could win. I thought that alone might make you investigate further, but you more buried your head in the sand.” He more seemed amused over that, “I was so exhausted by that, by the time I woke up you’d changed your face again. I sent images of myself, I had to disguise them, whatever Rassilon had done meant that it was a struggle to send them through unaffected.”

“Brendon…” The realisation hit her like a ton of bricks, “you put those thoughts there.”

“Yes. I figured, the memories they depicted, cloaked as they were, were still important enough that I’d hoped they’d reveal something, anything.”

“What happened? I don’t… We shouldn’t be separate people, I thought if I came here, I’d remember.” He frowned sadly, shoulders slumping but more in a way of him resigning him to something he already thought but had been hoping otherwise.

“Omega’s creations were unparalleled. And indeed, it seems, unbeatable.”

“You beat it.”

“I tucked myself away in my own mind and then threw myself into the Prime Distributer of the looms whilst doing so. I’d figured, even half out of my mind and quickly fading, that a miniscule chance of remembering was better than none.” As he spoke the wall behind him shifted as images of memories began to float towards the surface. Images of him stumbling towards a machine that she didn’t recognise, “if I hadn’t, I’m certain my head would have been paraded across Gallifrey on a spike, remembered as the villain the almighty president did in.” Those words were sarcastic, his jaw clenching angrily, “I made my own choice.”

“What happened? What was our life? Cause I know next to nothing.”

“I was found, at eight years old, underneath a portal to somewhere that we have no clue where it led too.”

“You don’t know?”

“I was found with no memories.”

“So, we really don’t know where we came from.” The Doctor’s shoulders slumped in disappointment and the Other smiled sadly at her with a shrug of his own.

“Unfortunately, no. Tectuen, our,” he hesitated for a second before saying the next word, “our mother, to an extent, was obsessed with finding out where the portal went.”

“Tectuen went missing, Rassilon had said that.”

“Yes. Peylix, or Omega to you, trained as Tectuen’s apprentice. She and Rassilon and I, were part of the original class of the academy. They were the first generation raised up with the ability to regenerate.” The memory, the one of the three young children in the great library played out on the wall beside them, this time she got to see the figure of who she assumed to be Tectuen looming in the doorway, beckoning him towards him, “One day, Peylix and Tectuen, they went out in search of something, I was never told what, but I think they were trying to find the portal. Peylix would say nothing about what happened when she came back alone. After Tectuen was gone, Peylix and Rassilon began their experiments for the Eye of Harmony, they stated it was an accident that caused the Yssgaroth to come through. I learned something whilst fighting, something bad enough that they’d try and hunt me down and wipe my name from Time Lord history, for fear of what the truth might cause if it got out.”

“What did you learn?”

“That it wasn’t a mistake. That they let the Great Vampires in on purpose. That the war that transpired, all the deaths, all the heartaches and horror, spread across almost the whole universe, the countless planets left baron wastelands by their scourge, was all because of their desire for power.”

“Didn’t they already have it? Or were they trying to conquer the universe by takeovers at war?”

“No.” he frowned for a moment, clearly thinking about how to explain what needed to be explained and then continued, “In my time on Gallifrey, the Time Lords were new. They held less than even a fraction of the power they held by your time. The planet was held by religious beliefs, ones that Tectuen had always scoffed at, but beliefs none the less that were held by a majority of the population. The Pythia had run the planet for eons, it wasn’t even remembered by that point how far back their influence stretched. When Tectuen created the academy, began to spread her research to others, it was under the watchful eye of the Pythia. She had to follow by their rules, anything she didn’t have permission for had to be hidden away. After she disappeared, Rassilon and Peylix decided they refused to obey by these rules. The war with the vampires gave them control, they were the ones with experience in combat and experience in interstellar travel. They were the ones in the process of developing TARDISs that could be used to aid the fight. They were handed the power to protect the people of Gallifrey. They didn’t want to give it back.”

“And you found out that they did it all on purpose.”

“They still hadn’t created the Eye, that was just an excuse for permission to go up there and do what needed to be done. I fought in the war, I watched friends, people I loved, die in it. When I found out what they’d done…” he trailed off, anger clearly simmering beneath the surface, even after all this time, “I was ready to march straight to the council of elders and let it be known. Even if it would shut down the academy altogether. Once they found out what I intended to do…” he trailed off once more, and a flash of the memory she’d been shown, that she’d seen a lifetime ago, of a woman falling from a bowship and regenerating mid attack flashed both in her mind and on the wall behind her and the Doctor looked to this past self with wide eyes.

“What happened then?”

“I barely managed to escape. Had to invoke the equivalent of an emergency temporal shift in my ship, poor girl. I ended up in uncharted territory. Out in the backwoods of the universe where it was all completely unknown. On the only planet in the solar system with intelligent life that was still alive.”

“You discovered Earth…” The Other smiled with a soft shrug.

“Yeah. Least for the Time Lords. I think that was one of the things that lingered when you came around. I spent so much time on that little planet. Of course, I couldn’t understand a word of what anyone was speaking. The TARDIS hadn’t assimilated the languages yet when I first arrived. I stumbled out into some alleyway, half conscious, no clue where I was. I was helped by young man who found me there, took me home to help me best he could. He would be my first and only companion. Obviously, you’ve had a lot more but-”

“Lee…” he looked surprised that she knew who he was and his eyebrows furrowed for a moment before a memory appeared on the wall beside him and she saw Ruth and herself and he turned back to her with wide eyes, “oh, you were there. I’d forgotten.”

“I’m sorry about what happened to him.”

“I suppose the grief I still feel over his death is one thing you’d prefer not to share if we ever became one mind again.” He tried to say it jokingly, but it was clear how affected he still was by the death.

“I’m sorry I didn’t do more to help him.”

“You didn’t know. You couldn’t have known. You helped him help me, that’s what he wanted. Everything I did after that; I did in his name.” they were silent for a moment, the worst of the grief ebbing from his system and her watching in sympathy because she knew that hurt too many times over by this point.

“What happened? To separate our minds like this?”

“I tried to fight back, and I lost. But I saved who I could and tried to let it be known that everything I did was to save my people. As much as I’d grown to love the Earth, Gallifrey was everything I’d ever known. I couldn’t let it fall into the hands of someone like Rassilon. I wish he hadn’t done what he had. I wish you and I weren’t separated into two consciousnesses like this.”

“Maybe you just need to come with me? Maybe now I’m here you’ll be able to leave?” the Doctor looked to her Other self with wide eyes, excited at the prospect that she was the key to help set him free, to join them into one person. He seemed warily optimistic at this prospect and the two of them approached the wall that would lead back out into the Doctor’s life. They both reached out a hand but, whilst the Doctor’s moved through it easily, the Other’s hand pressed against it like a hard wall and both sets of their shoulders slumped. “Really thought that might work.”

“I think that whatever Omega created, and Rassilon did, cannot be reversed without being told how from one of them. Or finding the research into it. Perhaps you could just go to Gallifrey, the tunnels underground would surely have-”

“Gallifrey’s gone.” She was quick to cut him off, the words apologetic but firm and the Other’s face fell before he simply looked horrified.

“Gone?” she nodded, “I haven’t watched in a while. I- How?”

“Have you seen someone called the Master when you’d managed to look into what I was doing?” He nodded slowly, confused.

“Only briefly. Why would he do that?”

“Because of us. The thought of Time Lords even existing because of us, the thought of him existing because of us, made him deranged.” 

“My home is gone…” He murmured miserably.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s your home too. More yours than mine by this point. Both our homes.” He swallowed thickly, then squared his shoulders and forced himself to continue, “you said you’d spoken to Rassilon, maybe he knows how to reverse it?”

“He said I’d need Omega to do it. Omega’s dead. His body decayed trying to come back through from his anti-matter universe.” The Other’s head snapped up; face confused.

“Omega died in the creation of the Eye of Harmony?”

“You don’t know…? Course you don’t.”

“Know what?”

“Omega survived that. Falling into a universe of anti-matter and fully adapted to survive within it. He’s been desperate to come back through multiple times, but he could no longer survive in this universe, the same way no Time Lord could survive there.” When she looked back to him his eyes were watering, tears threatening to slip over.

“I thought Peylix was dead. I thought… I went to try and save him, at the time. Rassilon sabotaged the experiment, I barely survived myself. I always thought, if I’d just been quicker.” Behind him on the wall the Doctor could see the memory of Omega falling in towards the black hole as it imploded, reaching out towards another version of the Other who was grasping desperately onto a piece of railing of the station that they were on, reaching out towards him back.

“I wish I remembered this. I wish our memories, our minds, weren’t separated like this. I’m you, you’re me. You remember Omega as this friend you grew up with, to me he’s this legendary figure.”

“You’re me. You’ll figure something out, we always do. Also, now you know I’m here, and I can answer any questions you may have.”

“It’s been good to finally meet you,” she smiled at him, “with both of us knowing who the other is now.” He grinned back at her.

“Good to finally talk to you Doctor. Good luck.”

“I hope to see you again soon, Doctor.” She nodded to him and, with one last glance back to him standing there twisting his flat cap between his hands, she stepped back into her own line of memories once more. Briefly she stepped back inside, eyebrows furrowed and a question on the tip of her tongue, his eyes snapped back to her, confused. She pointed up towards her hair, “are you why?”

“Why what?”

“Every time I’ve regenerated, I’ve constantly felt like I should have been ginger. Just felt like that’s what I should’ve been.”

“Oh,” he was grinning in amusement, “maybe. I’ve sent out that many thoughts and feelings over the years that maybe that was some lingering memory.”

“Oh, cool.” With one last grin sent his way she turned and disappeared for real this time.


	7. Black Hole Memory

The four of them awoke, startled, back into the circle created by the sisterhood and the Doctor all but leaped to her feet with a few heavy breaths, her mind racing with thoughts of everything that she’d just learned. The Fam all seemed to be nursing headaches as they sat up, but they all watched the Doctor in equal parts confusion and worry.

“I assume you found what you were searching for Doctor?” Ohila inquired gently once the Doctor’s frantic pace slowed slightly.

“And more.” She murmured out the words cryptically, not even looking in the other woman’s direction. Then she took in a heavy breath and suddenly bolted from the room and back down the corridor towards the TARDIS, leaving the Fam to scramble after her. The second all three were inside and the door was shut, the Doctor piloted them somewhere off of Karn and once the ship had become still again after flight the Doctor began her frantic pacing motions once again.

“What did you find behind that wall?” Yaz asked her, watching the Time Lord pace from her place sitting on the steps leading further into the TARDIS.

“Me.” She told them breathily and they shared a look of confusion before looking back to her.

“What?” Graham asked, his eyebrows furrowing as his face scrunched up in clear confusion from her response.

“Did you find all of your memories from back then?” Ryan asked next, trying to gather any clarifying information from her.

“No.” she shook her head before twirling to them, her next words coming quickly after the first as her face scrunched up in confusion as well, “Well, yes, sort of. I met me. That me. That consciousness is still in my head.”

“So, what? There’s another you inside your head?” Graham exclaimed.

“Yeah. Locked away. We can’t become one until I figure out a way to get rid of that wall. I can pass through, but they can’t, not even with me there with them.”

“And do you know a way to bring them through?”

“Other than finding Omega? No.”

“Omega did this to you?”

“Omega created it. Rassilon was the one who used it. That’s what I was told.”

“So, how do you find Omega?” Yaz asked, getting to her feet to walk over to her and the Doctor’s face fell even more, her shoulders slumping as she let out a heavy sigh and pushed a hand through her hair as she stopped her pacing and turned to face Yaz as she approached.

“You don’t. Omega’s dead.”

“Did the Master kill him too?” Ryan asked softly, clearly assuming that the legendary Gallifreyan figure had been another victim in the Master’s brutal attack on the planet.

“No. Omega died ages ago. If you don’t count all the times he tried to escape the universe of anti-matter, Rassilon sabotaged the experiment to create the Eye of Harmony and, as far as Gallifrey was concerned for eons, killed him.”

“But from what you’re saying, he didn’t die then?” Graham questioned and the Doctor nodded.

“Through sheer force of will he didn’t die. Instead he created a whole universe using anti-matter, which is deadly to Time Lords normally. Created his own universe and lived on. Only problem was, eventually he got lonely there, any life he could create was simple, unintelligent. He craved the company of other Time Lords, he tried to bring himself over into this universe, multiple times. Failed each time because he’s no longer able to survive in this universe. His biology had altered so much to survive in that anti-matter universe of his that he could no longer live in this one. The last I saw him, he tried to take over my body. Created a copy which eventually began to decay, and he was dying when I sent him back.”

“Dying doesn’t mean dead?” Yaz suggested softly and the Doctor gave her a weak thankful smile before shrugging once again.

“No, it doesn’t. But with Gallifrey gone, with the Time Lords gone, there really is no safe way to get into that anti-matter universe. And even if there were, there’s no guarantee that Omega would even be there.”

“Not like you to not even try.” Graham half joked and the Doctor could only sigh heavily.

“Getting into the universe won’t actually be the problem. The problem will be ensuring it doesn’t collapse because I’m there. And getting back out again would be a near impossibility unless Omega willed it. I highly doubt he’d be all that thrilled to see me.” She paused for a second and then scoffed, “or, there might not even be a universe there for me to get into. I could do all this work, jump through and meet the same fate Omega did.”

“So, what are you gonna do?” Yaz asked her.

“I’ve got to ask myself, is it worth it? Is there another way? I’ve lived all this time not knowing it, does it really matter? You know, in the grand scheme of things. There could be other ways of finding out the truth. Wouldn’t feel like my history but… I would know.”

“What about the other you in your head?”

“I don’t know. To even have a clue as to how to reverse it myself, I’d need to have a clue what they even did to me in the first place.”

“Doesn’t the other you know?” Ryan questioned.

“He doesn’t really understand Omega’s inventions all that much either. Omega’s mind was brilliant. His inventions rocketed Gallifrey into the forefront of scientific advancement, a place we still comfortably sit even to this day. No other civilisation ever truly catches up with us. Least in terms of control over time and warp technology. And dimensional manipulation. I can only imagine what Omega had concocted in order to wipe somebody’s mind.”

“What about Rassilon? You said he was the one who used it on you? He’s got to have understood it right?” Yaz asked, looking slightly hopeful at her suggestion but the Doctor could only frown with a pinched expression.

“From what I saw, when me and my other selves got transported away from you, back into earlier times of the Time Lords, I think the creation was already made before Omega died. I just escaped before it was used. Also, doesn’t seem it was altogether successful other than trapping that me in a tiny corner of my mind. But that me said he’d put himself there first, in an attempt to protect himself. I don’t think Rassilon even knew exactly what he was doing.”

“Right.” The Doctor let out a heavy sigh and moved over to the steps, dropping into the place Yaz had occupied just moments ago with her head hung and the stress clear in her hunched shoulders and tense figure. She ran her hands over her face and then pushed her fingers into her hair, her body hunched over slightly as her thoughts raced. She stayed like that for a long while, long enough that the Fam began to wonder if she was going to move again. If all that had happened had finally become too much. They shared a few looks, silently wondering which one of them should step forward and say anything. Yaz had just started to take a few steps closer to the woman when her head had shot up, her face scrunched up in frustration.

“I have to do it.” The Doctor leaped back up to her feet, looking suddenly frazzled, “and if I die in the process then, at least I’ll die in search of the truth. It’ll eat me up from the inside if I don’t. I _hate_ not knowing things. I hate feeling like I’m missing something.”

“But you said it was basically impossible?” Ryan stated and the Doctor waved him off, leaning into the console’s monitor as she began concocting a plan to get into the anti-matter universe.

“Yeah, ‘basically impossible’ not completely impossible. Pretty big distinction between those two. One I regularly squidge by on.”

“So how are you gonna do it?”

“Well, first off, I need to make a black hole.”

“A what?” Graham asked, shocked, “and how do you go about doing that?”

“Oh,” she waved him off somewhat flippantly, “that’s the easy part. Black holes, child’s play for Time Lords, we basically invented them.”

“Okay.” Yaz still sounded weakly shocked but she nodded a few times as she let that fact bounce around her head a few times as the Doctor rushed around the console, reaching for bits and bobs and becoming her usual frantic body of excitement, “and what then?”

“Then I need to trap it.” She grinned at her Fam. She had her goggles already strapped to her head and had two big handfuls of wires, “we’re gonna make an Eye of Harmony.”


	8. Courage

“Okay.” The Doctor stepped back from her masses of wires and new additions to the console and looked to her companions, her voice going soft as she spoke, “now to get you lot home.” At once the three of them startled, the thought never having crossed their minds that she would leave them behind.

“What do you mean? We’re coming with you.” Yaz insisted, eyebrows furrowing in annoyance at the Doctor trying to make that choice for them.

“You realise that there is only a minute chance of going through here and there actually being anything left, right?” The Doctor addressed her with a raised eyebrow, “I could go through and be trapped for the rest of eternity. If you come through with me, you could die. And not a nice death either, a slow one. Drawn out for eternity as anti-matter slowly eats its way through you.”

“Exactly why we aren’t letting you go alone.” Yaz spoke with conviction, but it didn’t escape the Doctor’s notice how Ryan and Graham both shared a look before turning back to them and then nodding. Therefore, her focus was more on dissuading them than Yaz as she continued, knowing by the sound of the other woman there would be little that could be said or done to change her mind.

“Really think about this. If we all get trapped there, you’ll never see your friends and loved ones again.” She looked to Yaz, “never see your mum or dad again. Or your sister. They’ll never know what happened to you.”

“I trust that it always works out for you. And if it doesn’t this time, then it’ll be my choice to come along. Not yours. Just like it’s not your choice to send me away. I stay because I _want_ to stay.”

“We’re your mate. Mates stick together. Through thick and thin.” Graham told her, his voice that gentle grandfatherly way that made most people melt and the Doctor seemed to visibly relent slightly at its appearance.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” The Doctor pulled her goggles back down and moved to the monitor attached to the console, the screen flickering to life to show the outside of the ship. It showed the star they were floating in front of and the humans all peeked over her shoulder in order to see. She glanced over to them and bit back a smile of amusement then nudged her head towards the doors, “you can go have a look from there if you want?”

“Really?” Yaz asked, already practically skipping towards the doors in excitement.

“Yeah, should be safe.”

“Should be?” Graham questioned nervously but Yaz had already yanked the doors open and was staring out with wide eyes at the shining gas giant burning ahead of them.

“We’re gonna start to be pulled in almost as soon as I set this thing off. I’ve got stabilisers stationed around it, you should be able to see some of them out there.” True enough, as they looked out they could see in the distance, in all directions, hovering devices that gave off a faint blue glow. “They should, _should_ , keep everything open long enough to get what we need. However, I wouldn’t advise we stick around for long if it can be helped.”

“It’s amazing that we can sit this close to a star, and now you’re essentially gonna blow it up.” Ryan muttered out, leaning against the left hand side of the doors as he stared out, “it’s cool.”

“Black holes are really cool. Very powerful. Last time I did something like this, I used one to communicate through to another universe. Course, that only lasted for a few minutes. But still…” she trailed off, something heavy reaching her voice in the end and the Fam all shared a look, all wondering which of those memories they’d glimpsed whilst in her head was the one that had her reminiscing like this.

“Still hard to believe there’s different universes as well.” Yaz piped up, trying to draw her out of it before her mood was completely affected by the memories.

“You’ve been to one before.” The Doctor pointed out and Yaz could only roll her eyes in amusement, turned in the doorway to look towards the Doctor who was continuing to round the console, pressing buttons and flicking switches and occasionally jumping back to the monitor to look at the readings that showed up on the screen.

“Yeah, but an actually different one. With people, rather than a living one. Or one with just one person. Does it mean the infinite universe theory is true?”

“The what?” Ryan asked and Graham scoffed slightly.

“Come on son, even I know that one. The theory that for every choice you or anyone else ever made, there’s an alternate universe where the opposite happened.” Ryan just shrugged at Graham’s explanation.

“Never heard of it.”

“I dunno if it quite works like that. But there are an infinite number of universes, anything’s possible.” The Doctor piped up sounding cheerful again.

“That mean there’s other versions of you out there?”

“Ah, well. No. Time Lords exist at a sort of sweet point in the universes. We’re somewhat of a centre. Gallifrey is a singularity across all universes. Now the Time Lords are gone, they’re really gone. Multi-dimensional travel used to be a usual thing for my people, they all got called back during the Time War. Gateways now stay closed. Any attempts to force them open could result in total universal collapse for both universes.” She paused for a moment then looked to them, “there’s probably other versions of you lot though.”

“Really?” When the Doctor nodded, Yaz turned back to the star outside the doors with an impressed smile on her face, “Cool.”

“Be careful now,” the Doctor warned them as she reached over for one last lever, “I’m about to set this off.”

“Could we get sucked into it?” Ryan asked nervously and the Doctor shook her head.

“Nah, TARDISs shields will protect you from being dragged out. Wait and see on whether the ship itself will be pulled in.” They turned to her with wide wary eyes and the Doctor sat her hand on the final lever and raised an eyebrow at them, “last chance. I could take you home right now, keep you safe.”

“Do it.” Yaz answered with little hesitation and Ryan and Graham both nodded in agreement and the Doctor took in a heavy breath and pulled down the lever.

There was a second where the Fam wondered if nothing was actually going to happen as they turned back around to face outside. The space around them still eerily calm as they waited. It wasn’t a disappointing sight. The boom that happened when the star finally began to implode in on itself took a few seconds to reach them from how far away they were but when it did the draft that snuck through the TARDIS’s shielding blew back their hair and clothes. The TARDIS shuddered, the old ship not haven taken that kind of abuse from a powerful energy source in a while, but she held strong and the Fam watched as the star began to collapse into itself. Masses of jumping blasts of energy firing out before being drawn back in as a black spot at the centre of the star began to grow. Slowly gaining in size as it drew in the immediate energy of itself.

“Someone come here and give me a hand!” The Doctor called out and Yaz was quick to duck back up and join her at the console.

“What do you need?”

“Hold that down.” The Doctor pointed to a lever and at once Yaz reached for it, surprised by how much the lever seemed to fight against her holding it, so she ended up having to use both hands and put her whole weight into it.

“Need anymore help?” Graham called over from the doors and the Doctor’s head swivelled to him and she quickly called back out to him.

“Shut those doors!” he and Ryan caught one last glimpse out as the devices stationed around the black hole that the Doctor had put out began to glow brighter before they closed the doors and joined the others at the console. “Hold on tight, this is gonna be a bumpy ride!”


	9. Remembrance of Old

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for disappearing last week. I just had a really bad week and couldn't really make myself write anything. I'm trying to be more on top of things though. I wanna start finishing and posting my other stories, just seems every time I go to write them my brain turns off XD So, I promise it'll happen soon guys!

When the ship finally stopped all its shaking and throwing them around the crew onboard all fell into an uneasy silence. The three humans glancing to the Doctor for guidance, but she looked just as uneasy and clueless as the rest of them.

“What happens now?” Yaz asked her after the silence dragged on for a few moments too long.

“Now, I go out there, and if there’s nothing out there then the anti-matter rushes in, if it isn’t already trying to destroy the outer shielding.”

“And if there is something?” Graham followed up nervously.

“Then I need to go and find Omega, and somehow convince him to help restore my memories. And hope he doesn’t kill me.” She started stepping away from the console towards the doors before a thought occurred to her and she spun back to them, “oh!” She took hold of Yaz’s hand and pulled her towards the monitor, “I need you to keep an eye on that.” She pointed to a levelling graph on the screen that was firmly in the yellow territory. “If I do get out that door, and this gets to red, call me back immediately. Otherwise we’re actually stuck here. The Eye will be held open but only for so long.”

“Are you trying to keep us in here?” Yaz asked bitterly, raising a questioning eyebrow to the Time Lord who shrugged and answered honestly.

“Yes. Because I’d rather you were safe in here. For however long that would be. I don’t know what to expect out there.”

“You don’t get to make that choice for us.” Yaz had more bite to her voice this time, “stop making decisions for us. It’s not fair.”

“Yaz, I’m about to step out there, possibly face first into a wall of pure anti-matter. It will rip me apart in seconds. The TARDIS following afterwards. It’s shielding can protect you, even for a while. She’ll try her hardest to keep you lot safe, maybe even get you home. And if by some miracle I do get out there and there is solid ground, it will have been moulded by a man who shaped Gallifrey, who’s mind and inventions still stump people far smarter than I am even to this day. I don’t know how receptive he’s going to be to see me here, considering I’m the one who put him back here, but he is my only chance of getting my memories back and no longer being two separate consciousness living inside one head. I’d rather he had no leverage over me. If it came down to my memories or you lot, I’d pick you in a heartbeat. But I’d rather that option wasn’t there for him. If he agrees to help, then I’ll need you lot there to make sure there’s no funny business but please, until then, make sure we aren’t trapped here. For me.” The Doctor looked between them, her face and voice pleading and one by one they reluctantly relented.

“You come and get us as soon as, alright?” Yaz told her firmly and the Doctor nodded in agreement and finally stepped up to the doors. She hesitated behind them, hands coming to rest on both the handles. Finally she pulled them open, sucking in a deep breath and squeezing her eyes shut with a wince, trying to prepare herself for an assault of anti-matter energy that never came. She opened one eye, then another and her whole body sagged in relief at the fact that the world outside looked solid enough.

She stepped out of her ship not knowing what she would find. She’d expected either darkness or, if indeed Omega had survived their last encounter, the antimatter universe to be back up and running. He would’ve had more than enough time to get everything sorted again. Or he should have. She stepped out onto solid ground. Which was a plus. She looked around. The walls of Omega’s once beaming palace were decrepit but holding. The earthy tones were peeling away to a grey untouched wall, the foundations beneath. She eyed it warily, reaching out a hand to touch but jerking it back when flecks of it flew away, the colour now black. She backed away slightly, the feeling that something was very wrong stirring in her gut.

When she found Omega, he was strapped up to all manner of machines, his breathing shallow and pained. Now that she knew what it was, she recognised the gold armoured shoulder piece that hung down over his chest and up towards his neck. The recognisable mask of Omega slotted into the armour like a perfect piece of the puzzle and the Doctor let out a low breath, her memory moving back to the woman she’d met back with her other selves. The one who’d threatened wiping her memory in the first place. The one behind all of this. To think if he’d mentioned it before, millennia ago, she would’ve known to start searching back then. Even a hint of something, a throwaway line somewhere that might’ve sparked interest, but even now as she looked through her own memories she could think of nothing Omega had said that could’ve made her think anything other than he was a madman.

She had always found it strange, his obsession with her, but again, strange things always just seemed drawn to her. She’d chalked it up to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She hesitated in the doorway, wondering what she should say. How she should approach this. She honestly hadn’t truly believed that she’d even actually get this far.

“Peylix?” She spoke up and heard the man’s steady shallow breaths turn stuttered. His head turned slowly to look at her and she took a few steps closer to him.

“Doctor?” the word was weak, pained sounding. At once any malice she might have felt took a back seat to the pity she held towards him. She took in a deep breath and nodded.

“It’s me.” She hesitated for a second and then spoke once again, “hello, old friend.” Omega’s chuckle was broken up by a bought of harsh coughs.

“Old friend. I find it impossible that you could refer to me in any such way.”

“Yeah, well. Lived this long without the memories, at least now I know they’re there.” There were a few seconds punctuated only by the shallow breaths that Omega took, like someone on a respirator.

“You still don’t remember?”

“It was your invention that did it. Did you ever think it wouldn’t work?”

“I apologise. I was wrong to have created such a thing.” The Doctor blinked in surprise at the man’s words and she finally closed the large gap she’d left between them, giving him an appreciative nod.

“Thank you. I forgive you.” She meant it. “Besides, from what I’ve been told, you only created it. You had nothing to do with it when it actually happened.”

“No. I assume Rassilon told you?”

“Rassilon implied. It was actually… that me. The me that knew you, he’s still in my head, but he’s trapped. Unable to escape. He told me some things, but neither of us know how to help him escape. That’s why I came here. You were my last hope.”

“He’s-” Omega cut himself off, clearly overwhelmed by disbelief of her words. He even struggled to sit up further, the Doctor wincing at the pain the mere movements seemed to cause him, “that you, my friend, is still alive?”

“Yes.” She hesitated once again before asking him softly, “I thought you would have healed yourself by now, you’re still dying.”

“I cannot die while in this universe. My own will perpetuates the universe, it cannot die until I do. But I cannot die while it still exists. A paradox of living hell. And I am too weak to attempt to send myself back into our original universe. But never mind that,” he tried to wave off her pity, “I have had centuries, millennia even, to think back over my actions and their consequences. All of which have led myself here. Siding with Rassilon, betraying you. Even if I had still ended up here, if I hadn’t created the machine that took your memories, you may have been more willing to help me escape this hell all those times I tried to. Still, however, I knew you sending me back that second time, you’d tried to give me mercy. An escape from death. Now I wish it more than anything. It is my own foolishness that brought me here.” She wanted very much to not believe him. To think this some kind of trap. A way of him to take advantage of her better nature. The way the Master and everyone else always seemed to. She had a kind heart and it was hard to have it taken advantage of, over and over and over. But, damn her for it, she believed him.

“If you help me, Peylix, then I’ll help you. I’ve brought my ship through. The Eye of Harmony I created should stay open for a little while longer. I could…” she trailed off. She wouldn’t be able to save him. She couldn’t promise that. The man took in another shallow sounding breath and nodded.

“I can finally die?” She could only nod. He sounded happy at the prospect. It spoke volumes to the pain he was in, “Then I shall be happy to do so, with a friend close by once again.” He reached out for her hand and she hesitated in giving him it but ultimately chose to sit her palm in the cold material of the gloves covering what would have been his hands if he’d still had a true form.

“I’m sure that me can’t wait to see you either.”

“If we could get to Gallifrey, it would be simple to just-”

“Gallifrey’s gone.” She cut him off before he could continue, the pain in her own voice mirroring the same inside Omega, once the confusion cleared and he understood her words.

“Gone?” his voice was weak, still confused and hurt sounding, “and its people?”

“Gone.” She repeated quietly.

“How?” his voice betrayed the tears he would have shed, had he had a true corporeal form beneath his mask and robes and armour.

“The Master discovered the truth. About who I was, about how the Time Lords truly came into being. He really didn’t like that. In fact, he found out way before me, waved it in my face. Lording that information over my head.”

“Then that may fall on my shoulders as well. If only you’d known already, had you known your place within Gallifrey’s history. Perhaps you could have explained.”

“This one’s not on you. That’s on him. And he’s… gone. Or, I think he is. He might be.” She sighed heavily, rubbing her hand down her face, “I never know with him. He’ll probably pop back up sooner or later. That blood is on his hands, though.” They fell into a silence, both grieving the loss of their planet and their people. “Please tell me there’s a way to get my memories back that we don’t need Gallifrey for?”

“It makes things more difficult admittedly. But there are ways.”

“Tell me what I can do to help.” The man watched her in a heavy silence for a few long moments. Long enough that she started to grow self-conscious and raised an eyebrow at him. “Peylix?”

“You may not have your memories, but your heart stays the same. Your temperament remains unchanged. It seems no matter what happens, the Doctor will remain the Doctor.” She smiled softly.

“Okay Peylix, how do we start?”


	10. Trust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again I apologise for the late chapter. My brain has no been kind to me lately, I just haven't been feeling the energy to write so I'm really sorry guys. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy the chapter anyway <3

“Doctor?” The woman in question’s head whirled around at the sound of her companion’s voice and she immediately narrowed her eyes as she pushed herself up from her crouched position next to Omega.

“I told you to stay in the TARDIS.” Yaz lifted her head defiantly in response to the harsh edge to the Doctor’s voice.

“We were worried about you. Besides,” she motioned behind them as Ryan stepped into the room behind her, “we left Graham watching the levels.” The Doctor’s eye twitched just slightly at the prospect of her least technologically minded companion being left in charge of watching if they were going to be left stuck here. Still though, she said nothing and instead beckoned them both closer.

“Yaz, Ryan, this is Omega.”

“We’re all good?” Yaz asked her softly, the hidden meaning not quite so hidden but the Doctor nodded anyway.

“We’re all good.”

“New friends Doctor?” Omega asked her and the Doctor half shrugged with a smile.

“Last time we met was a very long time ago. It’s been a long while since Tegan Jovanka and Nyssa.” Both humans looked to each other to see if the other was just as confused but neither got a chance to ask any questions as the Doctor suddenly leapt into action. “Okay Fam! I’ve got a list of things I need from the TARDIS, fancy going on a bit of a scavenger hunt?” She looked between them with a hopeful grin on her face that left little room for them to argue. Not that they would.

“You’ve got a plan?” Yaz asked, already following her towards the TARDIS.

“Yeah. We’re essentially gonna recreate the machine that wiped my memories in the first place. Tear down that wall from the inside.”

“What if he just blocks your memories again?” Ryan asked, trying to keep his voice down to avoid being overheard but still evidently panicked at the prospect.

“That’s where you lot come in.”

“We’re coming into your mind again?” Yaz questioned and the Doctor immediately shook her head.

“No. But you lot are gonna be out here watching over things. I imagine it’ll be pretty obvious if things start to go wrong.” The two shared worried looks over the Doctor’s head but as she started rambling out a list of things she’d need, most of which being things they’d never heard of, they realised that their full attention needed to be on this. They were still in the early stages of yellow on the screen and so the Doctor let out a low sigh of relief. They had time.

><><><><><><

“You’re sure this is gonna work?” Yaz asked, her arms folded across her chest as she spoke quietly to the Doctor, her eyes darting mistrustingly towards the man still hooked up to a myriad of machines that seemed to be keeping him alive.

“No. But what other choice do I have?” the Doctor murmured back just as quietly, never once pausing her work as she continued to follow the instructions given to her about setting up a copy of the mind wipe device Omega had once created.

“Do you trust him to actually go through with this? To not try and kill you or, I don’t know, use it to possess you.”

“Again, don’t have much choice. But my gut is saying I can trust him this time. Usually that’s correct.” Her work paused for a second, a concerned frown spreading across her face as her eyes darted up to look forward at nothing, with worry shining through them, “Except when it’s not.” Before Yaz could reply about that vote of confidence the Doctor shook her head at herself and let out a heavy sigh and dropped the device she’d been working on and darted into the TARDIS to check the power levels. “Graham, how’re we looking for time?”

“Getting closer to red, but I think we’re good for now.” The older man sounded unsure and the Doctor took a quick glance at the screen, just to make sure, as she passed by him to check another device on another panel of the console.

><><><><><><

When it was finally finished, the Doctor settled herself down into the chair, hands reaching for the hooked-up headband hanging above her head. She was put in mind of the chameleon arch and she couldn’t help the nervous little flips that her hearts did in response of the memory. She was quite literally putting herself into the hands of Omega, a man who’d tried to kill her twice, who’d already tried to possess her once before, and she was doing it 100% willingly.

She was glad to have her Fam nearby, though she wasn’t sure what they’d be able to do if Omega did try and take her over. The moral support of having someone there if things did go to hell was nice though, as it always had been. She’d plugged Omega in through the machinery he was already strapped up to and she tried to make herself relax enough for the process to go smoothly once she started.

“We’ll be right here,” Yaz told her, “we’ll make sure everything stays alright.”

“Keep an eye on where the level’s sitting at. If we hit red, wake us up immediately. Even if we aren’t finished.” The Doctor informed her and Yaz nodded.

“We will.”

“Ready Peylix?” the Doctor glanced around to the man and with a shaky sounding breath he nodded.

“I wait for you Doctor. I am ready.”

><><><><><><

Stepping back into her memories felt strange with someone like Omega now beside her. Seeing as he had no true corporeal form that she’d ever been privy to outside of her brief foray into the past, it was that face that he ended up with when they stepped through the console room of her mind into the passage containing her memories. Peylix looked down over the living body the Doctor’s mind had given her, her hands moving to grasp at her own skin beneath the cloth of her robes.

“It’s strange.” She murmured quietly, “I’d forgotten what it was like.” She’d spoken mostly to herself, and the Doctor waited for the moment it sunk in so that they could walk on. Omega’s eyes drifted casually over the memories they walked by. Less of the wonder of her companions and more the quiet silence of intrigue. “You have been a great many places Doctor. I wish I would have known even half as many.” The Doctor’s eyebrows furrowed.

“What’re you talking about? Surely you travelled?”

“My time was spent fuelled by a need to further Gallifrey’s scientific advancements. Locking myself away in labs unless it was absolutely necessary. I didn’t even realise it as my enemies moved against me. Even with your warnings. I was a fool, and now I can make amends.” The two continued on in silence after that until they finally reached what looked like the end of the Doctor’s timeline, they both knew, however, that it continued on after the wall in front of them, even if only one of them could pass through.

They approached the wall slowly, the Doctor feeling the nervous energy thrumming through her, both out of worry about Omega and what she could possibly do if she wasn’t truly here to help her, and also over what she was going to remember if this did help. Omega reaching out to run both her hands down over the wall, eyebrows furrowed, and she let out a little frustrated sigh.

“Something wrong?” The Doctor asked and Omega gave a half shrug.

“Sometimes I regret being so great at building things.” The Doctor couldn’t help her little noise of amusement at Omega’s words.

“Can you not bring it down?” she asked, worriedly.

“I can. It’s just going to be a more complicated process than I thought.” She closed her eyes after she spoke and fell silent, pressing her forehead against the wall, hands moving in places against the wall every few moments. “It’s a psychic block at its core. Just a very good one.”

“Don’t pat yourself on the back too much now.”

“It’s held for more than 3000 years. Plus however long it lay dormant before you were essentially reincarnated through the looms. I’ve think it’s more than earned me a pat on the back.” She glanced around to the Doctor, her face still pressed against the wall, an eyebrow raising. The Doctor took a moment before sighing and visibly relenting to that.

“Yeah, you’re right. Still though.” Omega smiled then turned back to having her forehead pressed against it. There was silence for another few moments, before Omega let out a noise of delight and stepped back.

The wall began to fall away piece by piece and there was a moment finally, before the wall had fully fallen, where the Doctor could see her past self stood there, waiting on it to fall so he could step through. His eyes locked first on Omega, however, and the two stood there as the wall continued to crumble away.

“Hello, Peylix.” They couldn’t hear him through the wall but the words were clear from his mouth as he spoke. At once Omega’s eyes began to water and the woman stood there’s composure began to crumble. Any doubts the Doctor may have had about Omega’s possible true intentions disappeared and the woman’s face scrunched up in guilt and grief and she reached out a hand towards the man but it hit the wall that still held them apart until the visible wall was gone.

“I’m sorry.” Omega told him, unsure if he could even hear but desperate for him to know, “I’m so sorry.” The Other Doctor smiled softly, clearly able to understand despite the barrier between them. He lifted his hand to sit it on the other side of the wall.

Finally the wall crumbled away and all three gasped at the sudden charge of energy that raced out from both ends, the Doctor’s brain racing to attempt to piece itself together and Omega reached out once more to the Other Doctor, unable to reach him before she was forced from the Doctor’s brain. The two Doctor’s braced themselves against the force of the energy, as the lines began to connect, and stepped closer to one another. They reached for one another, their hands managing to grasp against the forces trying to keep them apart and suddenly the Other Doctor began to glow, so bright that the Doctor couldn’t keep her eyes on him.

“What’s happening?” She cried out to him, panicked slightly.

“Once we’re connected, I cease to exist. My memories are your memories now. You’re welcome to them, Doctor.” And with a smile he disappeared in a burst of bright light, the wave of energy making the Doctor’s hair and coat billow up before finally everything settled and the Doctor was left with a whole new line of millennia of history to explore and to sort through as memories of a life she could both remember and not swirled around her.


	11. Song of Forgetting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So uh... sorry for this taking so long, but this chapter is over 11,000 words so that's my excuse.

_His mother was putting together her own small collection of chosen ones. Their once empty house was now filled with more familiar faces, some of which assisted the other woman with her endeavours to put together a school to educate the masses of Gallifrey. She’d always been staunchly against the religion and beliefs held by the rest of the population of their planet and endeavoured to use the information she’d discovered throughout her travels and through her experiments with him to bring them over to the name of science. He was still the youngest here, at 8 years old he was very small for his age, often being mistaken for someone a few years younger than he was. He didn’t know why, but he’d heard his mother and her friends discussing it once. Considering that her experiments had something to do with stunting his growth. That his constant regenerations gave his bodies little chance to settle back into a proper growing routine. He’d wondered why they didn’t stop. But he had little idea on how to question them as he’d slinked back into bed._

_Peylix was the closest to his age at just 12 years old but she’d had very little interest in interacting with him outside of her times standing in at Tectuen’s side during their ‘experimentation’ days. That didn’t mean the small ginger boy didn’t try to get her attention, to try and get her to interact with him. In fact, a great way for him to keep the girl’s attention on him was to mess with her things. She was very attached to her notes and he had no problems sneaking into her room to look over them. To maybe take them so that he could study them himself sometimes. He wasn’t able to read all of it, not yet anyway, but it never failed to bring her focus out of her books as she tried to stop him._

_“Get back here!” Peylix cried out, her face flushed in anger, something that doubled down as she heard his giggles as he raced down the square staircase, her notebook in hand. “Give it back to me!” He just threw his head back and laughed._

_> <>< _

_The small girl hadn’t **tried** to lag behind the others as they made their way through the busy marketplace, but she’d caught sight of the collection of women dressed in deep red robes with white face paint splashed across each of their faces, and she couldn’t help but stop to look. They looked like something out of a story book. The Sisterhood of the Pythia. The worshipers of the Menti-Celesti, the gods who gifted them their perceptions through time. Her mother scoffed at them. Felt herself and the rest of her new selective few should be above blindly worshiping gods who weren’t there. _

_The girl, however, did think the prospect of having that sight into what was coming was fascinating though. She would’ve liked something like that. Just to see if there would ever be a day where she would no longer have to face her mother’s experiments._

_One of the sisters caught her eye from her spot watching in the crowd, she smiled at her. The girl smiled back, even waved. She got a friendly nod in response before the woman looked head once again._

_The girl jumped as she heard a voice calling her name and she whirled around as a hand gripped her arm in a much too tight grip and she was all but dragged away, back to her mother’s home and to the regular grind of her mother’s endeavours to expand the Time Lords._

_> <><>< _

_The Doctor. That was his name now. That was the name he’d chosen once he’d entered the academy. His mother had thought it important that they change everything they’d been before as they started their journey towards becoming Time Lords. He preferred it. It felt right._

_The library had become his new home away from home. Home meant hurt. It meant experimentation. It meant deep dives into his very DNA which left him with a new face and a new body to get used to, and he’d rather have the chance to stick with one body for longer than a few days if it could be helped._

_The library held books about different planets. The shelves surrounding him held his mother’s journals about her travels. They held information about what they knew so far about the universe. The first TARDISs had been built. Slowly but surely the shelves were beginning to be built up by information from all across the universe and he’d been reading as much as he could as fast as he could._

_He couldn’t help but dream of a day where he could finally leave the planet’s surface. His mother told him that she’d found him on another world. Maybe one day he could find his way back out there. Find out where he came from. Meet other people that were like him. People who could change their faces when they died. His scribbles into his notebook paused as he heard a familiar voice speaking up to the left of him._

_“What are you up to Doc?” He made a face at Peylix’s use of the nickname, as she slid into the seat next to him. He’d just opened his mouth to insist on her not calling him that when a hand reached down from his right and snatched his notebook up out of his reach. He whirled around, ready to tear into them, hands reaching out to try and get it back, only to freeze for a moment as he found Rassilon stood over him, holding the notebook out of his grip._

_Rassilon was another of his mother’s favourite. He was a few years older than Peylix and he… he made him uneasy. There was something about the older boy that made the Doctor regret the fact that his mother wanted to give the boy the ability to regenerate. Not that he’d ever say as much._

_“Head buried in more books about anywhere else?” Peylix teased and the Doctor looked back to her._

_“They’re interesting.” He said quietly, half ducking his head only to jump when Rassilon dumped the notebook back onto the table in front of him and hopped up to sit on the table. As the Doctor flipped the notebook open, the other two leaned in to look at what he’d been writing about._

_“Which one’s this?” He eyed them both suspiciously for a moment, wondering why they seemed so interested but eventually relented and tried to explain._

_“It’s Valdoon. Thremix just returned from there. He was writing about everything he saw. It sounds wonderful. The people there have four separate languages depending on where on the planet you are.”_

_“I thought he said they hadn’t even figured out basics of condensed matter physics yet.” Omega made a face of pure judgement and the Doctor frowned at her._

_“Not every civilisation moves at the same pace. I’m sure if you jumped forward a few centuries they’d be travelling the stars just like us.”_

_“You really have so much interest in lesser species.” Rassilon snorted slightly, flicking through a bunch more pages and the Doctor forced back a scowl at the use of the term. ‘Lesser species’ there was no such thing. He’d been about to argue his point when his mother’s voice echoed over the room._

_“Doctor.” The three of them turned, the woman was stood in the doorway, her eyebrow raised, and she crooked a finger at him. He paled, feeling his hearts begin to race. He’d thought he was done for the week. Apparently not. He reached back and slid the notebook over to Peylix who took it wordlessly, kind enough to keep a hold of it for him until he was done because it would do him no favours to walk around sporting his want to leave for the elders to see._

_> <>< _

_She leaned over the incubator tank and smiled, reaching in a hand towards the growing TARDIS within. It was still only a few years old; it would be a long while yet until it was fully grown but the Doctor could barely wait. If she could leave without needing to devote her life to the Division she would, but as it stood this was her only chance at freedom. She wasn’t about to throw that away, not for anything. She’d get her own ship, raised from infancy to be hers and hers alone._

_> <>< _

_Her first trip off planet was for the Division, a simple exploration. But it had afforded her more freedom than she’d ever had before. To be able to see colours other than the oppressing red of Gallifrey. To visit a sky that was bright pink and sparkled with tiny specs of what were actually bacteria in the atmosphere reflecting the sun, but it looked magical all the same._

_Places like this sometimes had her doubting her mother’s insistence that the Gods that Gallifrey looked up to didn’t exist because how could science create this? She knew it had, the ship had sailed centuries ago on her trying to lean into the religion, plus she dreaded to think what her mother would do if she even **thought** that the Doctor had any kind of belief in it. Still though, she was coming to love the beauty of the universe. She wasn’t sure anything could bring her down from the high of travel and the freedom it brought._

_> <>< _

_The gun felt wrong in his hands, but he hadn’t been given much of a choice. He’d gotten too into his freedom with his TARDIS. It was times like this that always reminded him that, as far as he could go in his ship, he’d never get far enough to be free of his mother, to be free of the hold that Gallifrey had over him. He had no choice._

_He crawled towards the edge of the cliffside, hidden by the foliage as he looked down over the celebrations down below. The new President had been fighting the Time Lords the entire way, causing uproar against the rules and regulations they’d put in place upon introducing the man’s species to the base level instructions that came with allowing his species to begin researching time the same way the Time Lords had. The Division had made the decision that he needed to be dealt with and here the Doctor was. Not for the first time with an innocent person’s life in his hands. He had no choice and couldn’t even close his eyes as he took the shot._

_> <>< _

_The day the vampires broke through a tear that appeared in the universe was the day everything changed. The planet went to war in order to protect Gallifrey. To try and protect the rest of the universe. And to the Doctor, that had felt like a worthy cause. As someone who could already fight, who could already work the advanced weaponry that the Time Lords had created, he’d been put in charge of training up the cadets until Rassilon took over, the man’s military mind meaning it was obvious to appoint him as general in charge of the armed forces of Gallifrey. The Doctor had never taken to violence, had never enjoyed it, but he understood when it was necessary. Peylix and Rassilon were both working hard developing newer and more destructive weapons, their inventions as innovative as they were deadly. Peylix had even used her research into creating her Eye of Harmony to create weapons that could utilise the power of entire black holes. Those were hard to stomach using. The Doctor tried to avoid using them where he could, the unparalleled destruction they caused was unlike anything the universe had seen before. Entire star systems could be wiped out. Whole planets were destroyed, whole species were wiped from history. It was horrifying. But the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few at this point. If the Yssgaroth weren’t stopped, then the whole universe would be wiped out. All life either wiped out or enslaved and used as live stock for creatures who seemed to know nothing more than how to kill and get inside someone’s head._

_> <>< _

_Her mother was gone. When news had finally reached the Doctor, she hadn’t believed it. She’d rushed back to Gallifrey, only to have it confirmed by Rassilon before he ordered her back out to the front once again. She’d tried to argue, tried to speak with Peylix who was meant to have been there at the time it happened, but the other woman had withdrawn from public eye and refused to speak with anyone. Claiming the trauma of what had happened had caused her anguish. Even with the brief glimpse of her that the Doctor had gotten, she didn’t truly buy it._

_Something had happened during their trip off world. The Doctor, as she slowly made her way back to her TARDIS, was still struggling over the fact that she was halfway stuck between relief and grief over the woman’s death/disappearance. She may have made her life a living hell growing up, but she was all the family she knew. She’d taken her in, brought her into the Gallifreyan world rather than leaving her to die. Without everything she’d done to her the universe would suffer without the Time Lords’ advancements there to take out the Yssgaroth._

_> <>< _

_Rassilon and Peylix had let the vampires in on purpose._

_The King of the Yssgaroth’s words rattled around in her head. It’s truth of how they came into being in this universe. The tear in reality that was opened for them that led straight to Gallifrey. To the Caldera. Not in space. Not at the sight of Omega’s Eye of Harmony experiment. The first Great Vampire had come through on the surface of Gallifrey itself. She’d been on the planet’s surface, elsewhere, when it had. She’d felt the tremors, had heard the otherworldly snarls. She’d fought it face on. She’d watched men and women she knew fall to it. Her quick thinking had been what killed it. The service medal took pride of place in her belongings. And now she found out it had been allowed in on purpose._

_She’d watched the conversation between the King and Rassilon, hidden by the trees of the half-destroyed forest of Lindrick. Another world gone in the endless battle against these creatures, another few million lives lost to Rassilon’s thirst for power. He was using the war to build himself up in the eyes of Gallifrey. To make himself out to be a war hero. To be the man who stopped the Great Vampire scourge. And he was the one who released it in the first place._

_She’d been heard as she’d scrambled to get back to her ship. Normally each bowship had a whole crew but she was part of a crew of smaller ships crewed by one person each. She’d had to leave her beloved TARDIS behind in favour of the more easy-Vampire-killing design of the bowship. With the mighty bolt of steel at the front meant for piercing a Yssegaroth’s heart and heavily enforced armour intended to keep its pilots safe. Not that it always worked. So much needless death._

_Upon being heard the King Vampire had let out a hiss, teleporting away into the eternal darkness that the vampires hid within when not assaulting entire planets and bleeding them dry. Rassilon ordered his men after her and soon enough she found herself being shot out of the sky as she’d raced to get to the nearest outpost at the edge of this system. Her ship had plummeted back onto the planet’s surface, tearing down more trees on its way until it finally came to a stop, now an unflyable flaming wreck._

_She let out a cry of pain as her injured shoulder hit the wing of the ship after she slipped and lost her footing climbing out of the cockpit. The pain reverberated throughout her body. She could feel her very DNA beginning to boil from the regeneration energy beginning to build. She knew it far too well after the childhood she’d been subjected to. After the experiments she was still subjected to. After the pain of fighting a war that may have never happened had Rassilon and Peylix not been given power after her mother’s disappearance._

_She heard the rumbling of another bowship’s engine and craned her neck to look over and see, her face paling further at the sight of which ship had landed just across the clearing from her. She struggled around in the mud, forcing herself to get up and as she struggled the other bowship opened and Rassilon climbed out, surrounded by his personal guard. His face like thunder but still snared with victory as he stomped his way over to her. She’d just managed to get onto her knees, weakly snapping at him with her face pinched and her throat feeling tight from tears threatening to overcome her._

_“How could you? All those people, our people-” she didn’t get to finish her sentence as the back of his hand connected with her cheek and, in her already hazy and injured state, threw her back to the ground before standing over her._

_“Our people?” he let out a cruel sounding laugh, reaching out a hand for his spear that was placed easily into it by one of his men. All of whom she knew. All of whom stood there and did nothing. “ **My** people. You were never one of us. You were a tool, used to create the future. You’re an alien to us, just as you are to the rest of the universe. You’re nothing. We have what we need from you. We let you live as a mercy. You’ve surpassed your welcome. Gallifrey stands. It no longer requires the Doctor. Let the truth die with you.” A grin fell across his face as her hearts shattered. He raised the spear above his head. She let the regeneration burst forth, throwing her hands up to protect herself as he brought the spear down. _

_The energy exploded upon Rassilon like a fireball, tearing off chunks of flesh until he stopped screaming and fell back and the energy turned on his lackeys who all rushed forward to assist him. When it finally stopped, the Doctor fell back against the mud, a new person once again. Someone new with a new face and new voice and new body that she’d have to get used to all over again. Rassilon’s words fell about her head in a vicious cacophony of all her childhood fears confirmed and she let out an almighty scream of anguish, tears falling from her eyes just as quickly as the anger and hurt rushed around her whole body. She managed to force herself up and onto her feet, a hand coming to her mouth to hold back another round of sobs as she took in the destruction around her. As she took in the bodies of the men around her who she’d known and who she may have killed. The men who’d tried to kill her. She turned, fully prepared to make her way through the wilderness around her, forge a path through abandoned battlefields to find another way to Homm, when she heard the unmistakable roar of a Yssgaroth. She scrambled backwards as she spotted shadows moving behind the tree line. Reaching for Rassilon’s dropped spear as she backed up all the way until she reached his bowship. She looked up to it for just a moment, debating her decision, knowing that they’d find her quicker than ever when taking this ship, but it was better than being ripped apart by the Vampires coming out of the woodworks. She dumped the spear and climbed aboard._

_As the ship began to lift into the sky, she spotted the telltale golden shimmer of regeneration as Rassilon began to glow in the darkness, right as the shadows moved in closer from the trees. She had to find her TARDIS. Maybe the Time Lords would cast her out, but she still needed to warn the people of Gallifrey. The Pythia had placed the planet under Rassilon and Peylix’s protection. Exactly as they had wanted._

_> <>< _

_Emergency Temporal Shift had nearly torn her TARDIS apart, but it had been the only way to escape. The Doctor was sat, near despondent, with her back against the trashed console that was still sparking lightly every so often. She had blood running down one side of her face from the cuts at her temple. Her whole body was aching. She hadn’t really thought that was possible. Usually the first twenty hours or so after regenerating were pretty painless. The leftover energy meant she could probably jump off a cliff and still pop right back up at the other end totally fine. Her ship wasn’t any better, and all she could do was sit there and stare into nowhere into the distance, images of Rassilon and his words rushing through her head. Images of her fellow Time Lords trying to hunt her down at Rassilon’s word, refusing the listen to her. They used her and threw her away. Her sacrifices for the creation of the Time Lords were bathed in blood now. Hers and the rest of the universes. All of it leading to this, to beings corrupted by the power that her DNA had provided. She’d made this, even out of her control as it had been. Her jaw clenched as a lump welled up in her throat, a sob threatening to escape her, but she pushed it down, finally forcing herself to move as she wiped the moisture away from her eyes and used the console behind her to hoist herself to her feet. She had to figure out where she was._

_She took one step towards the doors and staggered suddenly to the left as a wave of dizziness hit her. She clutched her head, giving herself a light shake to try and get rid of the sudden double vision and stumbled into the ship’s doors. She winced at the light that shone in as she pulled the doors open and she reached a hand up to shield her eyes as she stepped outside. The temperature was cooler than she was used to on Gallifrey and, as she looked up, she could spot only one sun in the sky. Everything was blue in opposite to Gallifrey’s red._

_She was between two buildings, a narrow gap that her ship had slotted itself into when landing. The TARDIS had disguised herself the best she could, using the surrounding environment for ideas so the blue box was surprising, but the Doctor could spot another just like it on the corner of the street further down. She’d just stepped out when someone crashed into her and she’d almost gone crashing into the ground when hands had rushed out to catch her, her world pitching sideways suddenly despite them keeping her upright as her vision swam. She looked up, blinking through the fuzziness to take in the person before her. He looked Gallfreyan and for a moment she panicked, wondering if at random she’d been taken back to Gallifrey. But as she looked down, she saw what he was wearing was nothing like anything on her home planet. He spoke to her, concern on his face as she seemingly started to pitch to the side, blood still running down her face. She frowned at him, confused, unable to understand anything he was saying. He wasn’t speaking any kind of language that the TARDIS knew how to translate, and the Doctor had never heard anything like it._

_She saw his gaze snap to the side suddenly and she followed his line of vision to the TARDIS with its doors still lying open revealing the console room from within and she saw his eyes widen and come back to her, shock written clear across his face. Her own eyes widened, and she scrambled away from him, panic over him perhaps trying to get inside overcoming her as she all but threw herself towards the doors to pull them shut. They’d just clicked closed when she finally pitched backwards, and she heard the man scrambling forward to catch her with a gasp before the world went black._

_> <>< _

_She shot upright with a gasp, her eyes wide and searching around the room that she found herself inside of. It wasn’t a large room, with cream-coloured walls and a single rectangle window covered by curtains that had geometric patterns in red and yellow that barely seemed to keep out the sunlight. The bed was small, the sheets red with some kind of logo on the top of it. It looked like some kind of tree, it was green though, unlike Gallifrey’s red and silver. She didn’t recognise the writing. The TARDIS wasn’t translating for her yet again. Meant it was a so far unassimilated language. Which also meant she was in uncharted territory as far as Time Lord travel went. There were some pictures hung on the wall, in frames on the table and she leaned over to inspect the one on the small table next to the bed. In it was the man who’d found her outside the TARDIS, so she could only assume he was the one who’d brought her here. He was smiling with his arms around the shoulders of two other men. It was strange, again she thought, they looked Gallifreyan. Same basic bipedal form. Two arms, two legs, one head. Everything in the right place. But he hadn’t spoken Gallifreyan. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility for another life form to evolve with the same shape, but it was still strange, to see yourself mirrored in a person from another world._

_> <>< _

_They couldn’t understand one another. The TARDIS had never heard his language before, it wouldn’t know how to translate unless she brought him into the ship and ran a full scan. Which was an awfully personal thing to do to someone before you even knew their name. It would need to be done and it wasn’t too invasive truly. She’d like to be able to thank him, to learn his name. She also needed to get back to the TARDIS, check out the damage, see what she could do to fix it. She had no clue where she was going to go next, but she hadn’t been about to let her only friend remain suffering if she could help it._

_She’d jumped when the door to the room opened and the man from before stepped inside. Both their eyes widened in surprise, like he clearly hadn’t been expecting her to be awake. He spoke again, she again couldn’t understand him, and he started stepping closer, but she’d flinched back, memories of Rassilon swimming about in her mind. He froze in place, immediately backing up until she could relax once more. He tried to speak once again, clearly dragging out his words slowly, but she just shook her head at him with an apologetic frown._

_“I can’t understand you.” He looked wonder filled for a moment but clearly also couldn’t understand her. He made a face of frustration for a moment then held a finger up to her, indicating for her to wait, and moved towards the little table next to the bed and reached into one of the little drawers. She’d leaned backwards slightly as he got closer but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, especially as he pulled out a small book with white lined paper. The writing on the top page she again had never seen anything like it, but he quickly turned to the next blank page and then reached back in to pull out something to use to write on it. He went through a few different kinds, scribbling on the page until he found one that worked. It was strange because he simply tossed the duds back into the drawer rather than throwing them out._

_The conversation that followed was the strangest one she’d ever had, that involved a lot of crude picture drawings until she realised that he’d taken her to where he lived and patched her up to the best of his abilities. She’d responded with a smile of gratitude and had drawn a quick sketch of what she’d remembered the TARDIS had disguised itself as. The box shape crude and probably not an exact recreation, even with her memory, but he seemed to understand. His face lit up, a grin spreading across his face that had her hearts momentarily beating faster. She got to her feet, indicating that she wanted to go now, and he was quick to jump up, setting the notebook to the side with a quick nod as he realised what she wanted. He led her through his home and back towards her ship._

_> <>< _

_She made motions with her hand, bringing it up to her mouth and making it like a mouth that opened and closed, miming that he should start talking. It took him a second or two to understand but eventually it clicked, and he was quick to begin speaking out loud, making sure to stick to the spot that she’d put him in after stepping into her ship._

_He started speaking, the words seeming to come out slowly, like he wasn’t entirely sure what to say now that he’d been put on the spot. When he paused, unsure if she wanted more, she motioned for him to keep going and turned to her screen. He kept watching her as he continued, and eventually it started coming through to her in Gallifreyan. “-I live in Guildford, in Surray. It’s a town, South of London, which is the capitol. London is, I mean, not Surray. It’s England, the country.” He watched her as she smiled at him, stepping away from the monitor at the console and stepped towards him._

_“Hello,” he blinked in surprise upon hearing his own language coming from her lips and she smiled, letting out a huff of laughter at the clear shock on his face, pointing towards the central column, “it’s my ship, she’s able to translate for us.”_

_“Oh,” he realised quickly, “so, I’m just hearing English, you’re not actually speaking it?” she nodded, “Do I sound like I’m speaking your language? You even look like you’re speaking English though.”_

_“It’s a mental thing. I hope you don’t mind. It’s not too invasive, just skims the surface on your auditory and visual senses.”_

_“It’s in my head?” he immediately looked uncomfortable, glancing to the ship’s console and she reached out a hand as she explained quickly._

_“Not in a bad way! Sorry, I would have asked but,” she shrugged, “couldn’t exactly do that until I did it. It’s not permanent. Once I leave, it’ll stop.”_

_“Oh okay.”_

_“Quite a sophisticated language you have here.” She glanced to her screen, “so many conjunctions and double meanings. Impressive! Congratulations!”_

_“Thanks.” He laughed softly, “I mean, it’s not the only language on Earth.”_

_“Earth? Sorry, I only understood the last half of your first speaking there. Is that what this planet is called?”_

_“Yeah. I’m Lee, by the way.”_

_“Lee?” she sounded out the name on her tongue, the simple name foreign sounding to her, “I’m the Doctor.”_

_“The Doctor?” he asked, unable to keep his surprise back, “is that like a title?”_

_“No. It’s my name. I chose it.”_

_“You chose your name?”_

_“Don’t you?”_

_“No, we’re uh, we’re given them by our parents when we’re born.”_

_“But how will they know if you’ll like it?” She looked at him, eyebrows drawn together in just as much confusion as he was looking back at her with._

_“They don’t. What were you called when you were born?”_

_“No idea. It’s a long story. Anyway, nice to meet you Lee.”_

_“And you, Doctor.”_

_> <>< _

_“Can you teach me?” She asked him one day, taking a pause from the slow-going TARDIS repairs. She’d been on the planet for a few weeks now, and every day Lee had been coming back and spending hours with her, helping her best he could despite his primitive knowledge. He might not have much of a knowledge of advanced time-based physics, but he could follow instructions very well. And even if he wasn’t helping, she found him to be good company._

_“Teach you what?” He’d asked her, looking up from the book he’d taken from the library and had been slowly making his way through over the last few days, his expression confused._

_“Your language. I want to be able to speak it, without needing the TARDIS.”_

_“Are you able to do that? Could I learn yours?” He looked surprised but not against the idea. In fact, he looked like he would be excited at the prospect of learning hers. She hated to have to rain on his parade with her response._

_“I could teach you to read it. I have all the vocal capabilities that you have, you don’t have all of mine. So, you wouldn’t be able to speak it.” His face fell in disappointment for a split second before he sighed and then smiled again, closing the book with one hand and tossing it to the side as he turned to face her fully._

_“Oh. Still though, that’s a deal. Okay, I’ll teach you English.”_

_> <>< _

_She didn’t mean to get so side-tracked. She really hadn’t. But then, the longer she spent around Lee, the longer she spent with him travelling Earth and exploring its wonders and history and meeting its people, the less she tended to think back on the world and people that she’d left behind. Gallifrey had been stifling. Just the thought of fun on that planet made the elders faces turn to stone. At least her version of fun. Though perhaps that was just their reactions to her, given as how she wasn’t one of them. Humans were just… they were mad, creative and brilliant. Some of them were awful but she’d never hold that against the entire species. This was something she’d always tried to keep in mind of her own world, but they’d driven her out, they’d used her for her DNA, used her mind to do all kinds of despicable things in both the Division and the War, all of which seemed to be for nothing, nothing but corruption and hate and death. It was hard to think that there was anything redeemable about them._

_She was having fun and enjoying life. For the first time in her entire life, she felt like she belonged in some strange way. Even if it was just with Lee. Humans seemed to have this strange habit of getting caught up in the moment. A habit she’d picked up on. They also tended to invite you to join them, even when you were a complete stranger who’d only said hello. Some thought her a little strange, but it never seemed to put them off being kind. And that, she’d realised, was the biggest difference between them and Time Lords. Kindness. Whereas Gallifreyans were predetermined to follow logic and cold hard truth, humanity strived for kindness. They strived for compassion and love. Their whole lives spent just trying to find a place where they could fit in and love and be loved. She adored it all._

_The only thing was, she had realised how short her time with Lee was going to be. Realised just how short the human life span was. It would start and end, normally, within one single century. It was a heart-breaking fact for her. That she’d somehow have to live on after he was gone. She wished she could give him some of her regenerations, find a way to give him as immortal a life as she had, anything to keep him alive longer. To not have him leave her. And humans were so vulnerable compared to her, compared to Time Lords. They could be killed so easily. She worried about him constantly. Every year she spent with him he’d be another year older and she wished time would slow down._

_The thought occurred to her to try and do what Tectuen had done. To isolate the strand within in her DNA that allowed regeneration again. To make sure he stayed with her forever. But then she thought of all the pain and hatred that that strand of her DNA had brought about the universe. She thought of the corruption rampant across the Time Lords and then the mere thought of doing that to someone as good and as kind as Lee terrified her. She’d take this one century with him over slowly losing him to the hurt that overtook someone any older than that. Cheating death invited pain. She couldn’t do that to him._

_> <>< _

_The great Vampire King had finally emerged. While she hadn’t been paying much attention to the war, her TARDIS was still occasionally receiving mass communications sent. She hadn’t felt the need to check them any more seriously than glancing at them briefly to see if they ever mentioned her. However, when the news showed up about the King, the TARDIS had begun blaring alarms. The Doctor had scrambled to her feet from where she and Lee were sitting in the doorway, looking out onto the Earth from space, rushing over to the console, Lee hot on her heels. This message she’d paid a little more attention to, considering the alarms. She read through the Gallifreyan script, her eyes widening the more she read and eventually, she found the location given and then spotted the fact that Rassilon was leading the charge and her blood ran cold._

_“Doctor?” Lee questioned, concern written across his face as he reached out a hand to squeeze her upper arm gently, “What is it?”_

_“The King’s emerged.” Understanding hit Lee almost immediately, she’d told him her story in pieces throughout their years travelling together. “Rassilon’s leading the charge.”_

_“You don’t need to go.” He told her and she immediately shook her head._

_“But I do. This could end the war. No one else would have to die, if I don’t go, Rassilon might end up letting it go. Extend the war even longer. I need to go, and help them.”_

_“They tried to kill you!” Lee exclaimed, “They tried to kill you and told you that you didn’t belong with them, why would you wanna help them?”_

_“Because if I don’t and the Yssgaroth King escapes, then it’s not just the Time Lords that suffer, it’s the whole universe. Entire worlds could be killed, destroyed, left as barren wastelands where life could never again return. I can’t do nothing.” He stared at her, the panic clear in his eyes but eventually he dropped his hand from her arm and stood tall with a nod. Then said something that had her hearts skipping a terrified beat._

_“Then I’m coming with you.”_

_“You can’t. It’s not going to be safe. The Time Lords can barely stop these things. If you’re there then you might get hurt, or worse.” She argued with him, frustratedly torn between wanting to keep him safe and never letting him go._

_“Doctor, I’m sticking with you. No matter what. I don’t have to take on the King, bloody, Vampire, but I want to be there for you. Because I know how much you don’t wanna see your people. I don’t want them doing something to you and I’m not there to help.”_

_“I don’t want them doing anything to you either, so please.” She closed her eyes, head tilting against his chest as she pleaded with him, resisting the urge to press closer to him. She had to be strong here. She had to be firm. To keep him safe from the evil that her people brought about. To keep him safe from the destruction and death that the Yssgaroth caused everywhere they went._

_“We’ll look after each other, alright?” She pulled back to look him in the eye, wondering what she did in this universe to deserve him. Perhaps it was payback after all the pain she’d been inflicted with as a child, for centuries. For Gallifrey’s betrayal._

_“I don’t want to lose you.”_

_“Neither do I.” He retorted and her resolve to send him home shattered. It had never been sturdy in the first place._

_> <>< _

_The Doctor had made a big mistake coming back. He slumped forward slightly in the chair he’d been stuffed into after awaking from his regeneration, confused as to what the shrill sounding alarms were and why he seemed to be alone in this room. He felt the thrumming of post regeneration energy rushing through his veins and the events leading up to the regeneration and how he ended up strapped to this device were hazy. He remembered rushing back to Gallifrey after the King Vampire disappeared, intending to warn the high council about what Rassilon and Peylix had done. Only for Rassilon’s guard to apprehend him as he’d rushed into the council chamber and he’d heard Lee cry out as the blaster was fired into the Doctor’s back and he was dragged away. This was what he got for helping. Almost the second the King was locked away; the Doctor had been swarmed by the Time Lords and had been unable to escape. Dragged away to face the council who’d refused to believe him about Rassilon and Peylix’s betrayal._

_“Lee?” he dragged his eyes around the room, feeling the tightness of clothes now too small for him, but still more worried for the human in such an unforgiving and unfriendly place without him. He didn’t know what had happened to him. He didn’t know what had happened to himself. He had something strapped to his head and he was sure he had vague memories of Peylix and Rassilon doing something to him that had hurt. For the second time after a regeneration his whole body hurt, and he didn’t know what went wrong this time for it to hurt like this._

_He heard the sound of a door opening and he turned his head the best he could, his heart leaping for joy at the sight of his travelling companion as he poked his head into the room and searched about, clearly looking for him. It took the Doctor a moment to remember that Lee wasn’t accustomed to regeneration. He wouldn’t realise that it was him._

_“Lee?” he croaked out, watching the other man’s eyebrows furrow in confusion as he stared at him._

_“Doctor?” his words were hesitant, his face the picture of confusion and fear._

_“Lee.” He repeated the word again, terror settling around his hearts that this would be too much, that Lee would leave him here. He knew this would be strange for him. It had been strange for Gallifrey as well. It was still strange for non-Time Lord Gallifreyans._ “It’s me. I’m sorry.

_“How… how?” Lee reached out a hesitant hand, tears pricking at the other man’s eyes as he sat his hand against the Doctor’s cheek. The Time Lord leaned into the hand, peering up at the human, feeling immense guilt over those tears._

_“I can’t help what I look like. Regeneration doesn’t really offer a choice.”_

_“I thought you were dead.” Lee sucked in a heavy breath, the terror of the last few hours, of his panic over the Doctor, finally bubbling over. He clearly tried to distract himself as his hands busied themselves undoing the straps that kept the Doctor tied to the chair. As soon as he was free the Doctor was quick to pull the helmet off of his head, hissing out in pain at the marks that were left by it. Then he was quick to start undoing buttons to relieve his body of the pressure of being squeezed into clothes far too small for him. “What are you doing?” Lee asked, bemused through his tears._

_“Human clothes, they don’t alter with you.” The two shared quick smiles, then the Doctor got to his feet, stumbling forward and into Lee’s grip as he caught him._

_“We need to get out of here. I dunno how long that woman bought us.”_

_“What woman?”_

_“I never got her name. She was dressed in red, big headpiece? White face paint?”_

_“The Great Mother of the Pythia?” His eyebrows furrowed, confused over why any member of the Pythia, let alone the Great Mother would bother helping him. Perhaps they had noticed him after all. Perhaps they’d had a vision telling them he was needed further. He almost snorted audibly at that thought. Really, what else could the Doctor be fated for? He wanted to get as far away from Gallifrey as possible._

_> <>< _

_The two of them ran away again. The Doctor getting them as far away from Gallifrey as was possible, wanting to get them both to safety as quickly as he could. The regeneration energy was still swirling around his veins, it was making him feel dizzy, but he was running on pure adrenaline and a need to get Lee as far away as possible from the evil that permeated the entire planet. Lee had stayed back whilst the Doctor moved, the man clearly uneasy about the change the Doctor had gone through. When the ship finally came to a stop, the two finally had a chance to properly look at one another. The Doctor’s hearts thundering in his chest as he swallowed nervously and sat against the console, trying to hunch his now much bigger frame to seem smaller as he spoke._

_“I, um, I suppose you have some questions?”_

_“Yeah.” Lee answered quickly, nodding just a touch too much before he sucked in a heavy breath and began to pace back and forth in a small circle, pushing his hands through his hair before he looked back to him, pointing with a panicked looking expression, “How- How are you like this? What happened? They shot you! I thought you were dead. That woman- the priestess lady, she told me to expect a change, but I didn’t think-” He stopped talking for a moment, his voice raising a few pitches as the panic started to take over, “How are you a man?!”_

_“I can explain.” The Doctor held out both his hands, desperate for the man to calm down before he ended up hurting himself through the panic, “I… I can do this thing called regenerating. I can’t die. But… if I’m injured enough to be dying, then my whole DNA restructures itself. Everything changes, at least physically, mentally everything’s the same. But… gender, skin colour, voice, features. Everything changes.”_

_“Why didn’t you say something about this before?”_

_“I didn’t think I would die again any time soon. I’d just regenerated after we met. My time on Earth has actually been the most peaceful time of my life.”_

_“People have tried to kill us on Earth.”_

_“Not… not in the way I’m used to.” Silence fell over the two and the Doctor was the one to break it, swallowing nervously again, “Do you want to leave? I under-” The words got caught in his throat for a moment, but he forced himself to get through it, “I understand if you want to.”_

_“Do you want me to?” Lee’s voice sounded small and the Doctor was quick to shake his head._

_“Gods no. I want you to stay forever, but I understand if this,” he motioned down over himself, “is too much.”_

_“No. I just…. God I don’t know. This is a lot. I knew you were an alien, but I just didn’t…” Lee trailed off again, letting out another heavy sigh before he looked over the other man again, “You should… You should get some clothes that fit you on, and then we can talk and you can tell me everything.” The Doctor’s eyebrows furrowed for a moment, before he glanced down over his body, startling for a moment as he finally realised that he was still wearing the half undone, much too small clothes of his previous body._

_“Right. Yes.” He nodded a few times and pushed himself up and turned to make his way further into the TARDIS._

_“Doctor.” He paused, looking over his shoulder when Lee called out to him, his eyes wide, “I’m not going anywhere. I promise.” A smile blossomed across his face, relief spreading across both his hearts and he turned once again to seek out better fitting clothes._

_> <>< _

_“Peylix please!” he cried out towards her, voice desperate for her to listen to him, to come back from the viewing plaza because he knew that Rassilon had something set up. The rumours had spread. The distrust having grown between the two over the last few decades until even the Doctor had caught wind of it. An anonymous message sent to him had had him racing to land on Peylix’s Starbreaker starship, the Eurydice, to warn her. The ship was almost fully self-operating at this point, not requiring a full crew as it used to. It was only Peylix and a small skeleton crew onboard. Omega, as she still insisted on being called, spun to him, fury alighting on her face._

_“You should have stayed away, Doctor! I am about to create history! I will change the universe!”_

_“You’re going to die. This place isn’t safe, just please, come with me.”_

_“You expect me to believe you?”_

_“You betrayed **me**! You tried to attack **me**. But I can’t just let you die, please. All we’ve done together; we were raised together. Our years at the academy. They have to mean something to you. Even enough for you to just come away.” She simply rolled her eyes, turning her back to the large viewing screen as she smiled, mocking him._

_“I will do nothing of the sort. I don’t know what plan you’ve concocted up, but you will never tear me from my work.”_

_“I don’t have a plan, Rassilon does!” At once her smugness fell, a crack giving way to confusion as her eyebrows furrowed, concern quickly taking its place after that._

_“What?” As though on cue the implosion of the star behind them happened and the glass of the viewing screen began to crack. She’d taken in a breath to say something else and the Doctor could do little more than race to grab onto something close as the glass burst outward and the force of the blackhole hit them. He reached out a hand towards Omega with a cry out for her, distraught over everything that was happening._

_“Peylix!” He felt the pull begin to drag him up, trying to pull him out towards the giant entity being created outside. He could still see Peylix, her face the picture of terror, reaching out for him getting further and further away. The Doctor’s feet were lifting off of the ground from the force of it and the air was all but gone from the room. His fingers had just started to slip when he heard the sound of a door opening from behind him and a hand gripped onto his collar and he was pulled backwards, a door slamming shut between them and the vacuum of space outside. He just stared, distraught towards the door as Lee worriedly patted him down, checking for injuries, his own breathing heavy from the momentary lack of oxygen._

_“Doctor we need to go.” He told him, sitting a hand on his arm, “the ship’s starting to get sucked in.” When the Doctor continued to look through the glass of the door, to the disappearing figure of his oldest friend, Lee gave his arm another tug, “Doctor, come on. We need to get to the TARDIS!” The Doctor let himself be pulled back towards his ship but refused to let his eyes leave the picture of the black hole._

_> <>< _

_“I need to turn myself human.” The Doctor rushed into the TARDIS, still brimming with fresh regeneration energy and shrouded in too big clothes, calling out her words to Lee who followed her in, the human immediately looking shocked and confused. She dropped the gun she’d used to help them escape and hurried over to the console to begin flying them away from the assault happening just outside the doors._

_“What?” she turned to him, reaching up to grip his face and look him in the eye._

_“What just happened? They will never stop. The Time Lords, the Division. They’re blaming me for what happened to Peylix. They’ll hunt me down forever. Maybe you as well, and I can’t let that happen.” For a moment Lee leaned his face into the hand cupping his cheek, frustration over their situation visible across his entire being._

_“But how would you even turn yourself human? Why won’t they just listen?”_

_“Rassilon holds all the cards. I’m just playing with what I have.”_

_“What happens next?”_

_“I- I don’t really know. But I don’t think I’ll remember much. A fake backstory, the TARDIS will take us to Earth.” She paused at the hurt that entered his eyes and she tried to be as reassuring as possible as she tugged him in close, “We’ll be together. They don’t know where Earth is. I’ll mask the TARDIS. They won’t be able to find us.”_

_> <>< _

_“Homing in near your TARDIS signal. Can’t get too close. Imagine the temporal feedback loop. I’ll drop you off at the docks near my flat. How’s that?” The Doctor spoke, trying to keep her voice level while the blonde in the rainbow t-shirt just stared at her, confusion written across her very being._

_“You can’t be me. I know what I’ve done, I know my own life.”_

_“One of us has to be wrong.” There was a light shudder from the ship as she landed and the Doctor looked to the blonde and tried to make her tone as serious as possible, tried to hide the grief she was starting to drown in, to hide the panic she felt for Lee, “I’d quite like it if you got off my ship now.”_

_The blonde hesitated for another few moments, watching her with clear frustration on her face over the mystery of neither knowing who the other was but the Doctor could barely care less at this exact moment. Finally, though, she turned with a shake of her head and exited the ship. The Doctor barely waited for the door to close behind her before she set in the co-ordinates to take her back to the flat._

_> <>< _

_She pushed open the door to the flat slowly, still hoping against all hopes that maybe the door would open, and he’d still be in there, alive somehow. She found instead, an empty flat and a pile of ash on the floor next to her combat medal which she now knew had drawn her people after them. Tears rushed to her eyes and she let out a cry of anguish, dropping to her hands and knees as pain coursed through her body._

_It was worse than anything any near death that had happened to her yet. Worse than any pain that post-regeneration troubles had caused her. Worse than anything else her home had done to her before. She’d take centuries more torture and experimentation from her adoptive mother if it meant Lee could come back._

_She ended up staying there for hours, surrounded by images of them and the home they’d built together. She knew it hadn’t been fully alright for him, she knew he felt guilty because she hadn’t been able to remember all their years together before turning herself human. She wished she’d been able to remember before it happened. Maybe they could have just kept running? If she’d given herself up before then he would still be alive._

_She let out another choked sob. This was all her fault. The only person in the entire universe who’d ever cared about her. Ever loved her for her and she’d gotten him killed. She should have sent him home. Should have kept him safe._

_> <>< _

_She spent months drowning in her grief, unable to make herself do much of anything as the guilt over Lee’s death smothered her. She was finally pulled from it, or at least distracted by it, by the TARDIS letting out a beep, letting her know that there was another mass communication sent. She almost ignored it, almost just let it become another logged message that she’d never look at. But something in her said she should look at it, and so she pushed herself over to the monitor and clicked to open it. The news it shared was horrifying. Rassilon was organising a coup over the Pythia, intending on using his power and influence to finally rid the planet of their religious leaders. Alongside this message, was a decrypted message sent from the Sisterhood, begging her for help. Calling in a return in favour for having helped save her the last time she’d been on Gallifrey. That wouldn’t have done it normally, but she remembered how they’d kept Lee safe, and so she set the co-ordinates, even with a heavy sinking feeling in her heart telling her that she would almost certainly regret this._

_> <>< _

_The statues were new. That much she knew as she stepped into the grand ceremony hall, shrouded in a black hood to try and stay in the shadows as much as she could. She was a wanted woman on Gallifrey, it wouldn’t do good to go around showing her face, especially during the mess that was this military coup._

_She locked eyes with the Great Mother, the leader of the Pythia on her knees at the head of the great hall with Rassilon ranting about his power and about how he would bring Gallifrey ahead into an era of science and leave behind the religious shackles that the Sisterhood had kept Gallifrey trapped with. Break its people free. He would be forcing them into a tyranny under his control._

_The Great Mother gave her a nod, something discreet, Rassilon too busy with his own self-righteous speech to notice. The Doctor glanced to the huddled group of sisters near her at the back of the room and was quick to capture one of their attentions, motioning for them to begin making their ways over with her. They were quick, albeit cautious, throwing concerned glances over to Rassilon every few steps as they all followed the Doctor’s instructions to leave the room. Once the last one left the great hall, the Doctor looked up once more at Rassilon, deciding at that very moment that she had to come back. The Time Lords might be power mad and corrupt but the rest of Gallifrey didn’t deserve to fall under this monster’s control._

_She moved out the doorway with the sisters and began leading them through the maze of the Pythia’s temple, helping them stick to the shadows and they all stopped dead when, about halfway there, every torch in the hallway they were walking through went out all at once. The girl’s all gasped, one or two of them yelping in fright and the Doctor was quick to shush them. They fell silent, the Doctor’s hearts racing in her chest as she waited to see if anyone was approaching. Looking ahead told her that every torch in the whole building had gone out. When she decided the coast was clear she simply ushered the girls into continuing going and used her memory to get them back to the TARDIS in the darkness that now shrouded them. She should have been glad for it, but something told her that they’d want to be out of it as soon as possible._

_She couldn’t put a name to it, but as unease spread through her gut, she knew that there had to be a reason that Rassilon had come without his elite guards inside. When the TARDIS came into view, the light of the box’s windows shining some light in the small room she’d landed inside of, the Doctor darted forward and pushed open the door. She stood to the side, ushering the girls in first and, as the final one rushed in, she turned her head to take one last look back down the hallway they’d just walked down. She could’ve sworn she saw a large figure shrouded in the dark, hunched over with their face hidden._

_Fear sparked like fire inside her, burning through the uneasiness like it was paper in a pit, and she turned and rushed into the TARDIS, slamming the door shut behind herself before racing to the controls to take them away from the planet._

_> <>< _

_The Sisters had taken a good while to stop profusely thanking her enough through their tears to actually tell her about everything that had happened on Gallifrey since the last time she was there. They told her about Rassilon’s trials, about his attempts to expand the reach of the Time Lords. About the virus that Thremix had concocted for him. A viral airborne version of what Tectuen had developed using the Doctor’s DNA. They were willing to kill off however many millions of people, just for the minute few who may survive. When the Sisterhood had found out, that was when Rassilon had decided to act against them. The tension between the two had been mounting for a long while between then and now. It was clear Rassilon had had no choice, if the Sisters had announced to the public that he was planning, then everything the Time Lords had built would have gone to ruin. Though, how he was expecting to hide what he’d done once the virus was out, the Doctor had no idea._

_> <>< _

_What was he thinking? Tearing open a hole in time would destroy the whole planet. He seemed to think it was his only option to stabilise the affects of the Thremix virus. Instead of infecting ordinary Gallifreyans, the virus had spread throughout Rassilon’s elite Time Lords, 10% were gone in a matter of days and the Doctor had watched it all from the shadows, desperately trying to come up with a cure before the man did something mad to try and fix it._

_His solution? To tear open a gap in the Vortex and use the leaking artron energy to stabilise those suffering from the virus. She knew this would end badly. Anyone could have told him that, but he was desperate. Her mother, as devoid of feeling as she’d been, would have known better. Even Peylix with her mad experiments and obsession with the future wouldn’t have gone this far. This wouldn’t affect just the Time Lords. This would affect the whole of Gallifrey for the rest of time. Gallifrey would exist outside of time. It would be a singularity of the vortex, their lifetimes dramatically extended, the planet would blip out of existence in every reality but this one as a fixed point. The very DNA that gave them their immortality could be altered; she’d never thought that he would do anything to risk that. His immortality through regeneration had given the man a new lease on life in the worst possible way._

_He ransacked the Pythia’s archives, partnering ancient powerful objects with his modern technology and they had terrifying effects. He’d chosen to create the tear on the beachy banks of Lake Abydos. He’d gone there with his men, a few of the less sick feeling top advisors. She’d had no choice but to go to try and stop him. She’d raced there, flying out of her TARDIS and yelling that he not do this. He’d ordered his guards to hold her back and despite her fighting she’d quickly been closed in on._

_She was screaming for him to not do what he was going to do as she was dragged away, kicking scrambling to gain her footing in the sand of the beach. She had a front row seat as she watched Rassilon bring the glowing devices together, and the resulting **BOOM** that accompanied sent everyone flying as a burst of white light blinded them. _

_> <>< _

_The Doctor awoke in a shimmer of regeneration energy and sat upright with a gasp, immediately looking around the beach. Everyone around him seemed to be in similar states, a mass regeneration as everyone tried to get a hold of themselves, shaky from the sudden blast. A further look around had the Doctor’s eyes widening as he saw what had happened. The spot in front of Rassilon’s hunched over figure was cracked. Like a rip in the fabric of reality, inside the swirling terror of the vortex could be seen. He struggled to his feet, the first one up, the only one so used to regeneration that it wasn’t much of a feat to push through the worst of the side affects. He stumbled forwards, eyes widening as he stared inside of it, almost hypnotised by the raw power of what he could see within. He finally tore his eyes away from it and looked down to Rassilon as the man was finally struggling to get to his feet. He looked pale, not well at all. The two locked eyes for a moment, then the Doctor spoke, his voice quiet._

_“What have you done?”_

_“Secured the future for my people.” Rassilon hissed back, “My people, you have no business on this planet.”_

_“All those people dead. This isn’t about me anymore. It stopped being a long while ago. This is about all the death you’ve caused, all the pain. All of it in some search for ultimate power. Now you’ve subjected Gallifrey to this!” He motioned to the rip in time and watched as Rassilon finally looked to it, the man’s eyes widening. The Doctor watched him, watched as he got sucked into just staring at it, and he shouted, dragging his attention back to him. “Rassilon!”_

_The man startled, his eyes flickering back to the Doctor and his rage returned full force and he pointed towards the other man and called out with a growl, “Doctor! You won’t walk away from here! You never should have returned!”_

_> <>< _

_He could hear the guards close behind him as he stumbled his way up the hill towards the prime distributer of the looms. Rassilon’s creation yet again. An attempt to create the perfect Time Lord. Natural birth outlawed as it had been and, now with Time Lords unable to have babies, it meant that he’d had to create a way to create new life. Tectuen’s work in building up the Gallifreyan genome sequence meant that they could have their pick of the top DNA traits._

_The Looms were laid out like a vineyard in the valley gorge of Time. Within the endless chasm that lay beneath the planet’s top crust, it gave them all the space on the world to build up the future generation. Its light was bright, drawing the Doctor’s stumbling body towards them like a moth to a flame. He knew he had only two options. He could either die by Rassilon’s hand, be branded a traitor forever more, have his history written out as a monster and never have a chance to let his story, to let Lee’s story, be told. Or he could give himself a chance. The Looms tore apart whatever touched them, seeping that DNA into it, churning it around until it was pure molecules and could be stitched back together into something new. It would seem impossible that his entire self could be put back together exactly the same someday. Maybe it would take millions of years, maybe it would never happen, but at least this way he could have some hope. He reached the edge, parts of the rocks beneath his feet crumbling down into the seemingly endless depths below. He looked down, then around to the guards still racing up the hill towards him, then back down again. He turned to face them as they finally approached, all their weapons raised towards him. He felt his hearts break for his people. Because they were. Whether they liked it or not. This is what they had driven themselves to in their mad lust for power. He squeezed his eyes shut._

_“Good luck Doctor.” He whispered to himself as he spread his arms out and let himself fall backwards. He took the last few seconds to tuck himself away in his mind, praying that it might save something of his memories. Hoping that something in him could remember some day and he could know all that really happened. He could let others know. Could let them know the truth of Rassilon if it wasn’t already known by that point._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BTW, if you guys want a full version of this written I would be more than happy to. I'd considered it before I wrote this chapter as a more condensed version of it but I'm still happy to do it. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter and my version of the history of the Other.


	12. A New Old Life

The Doctor had come back to them with a gasp, her hands curling tightly around the arms of the chair. Her chest was heaving, her breathing coming in pants as a lifetime of memories rushed to the forefront of her brain. A thought of Lee’s face appeared in her head and the pain struck her harder than she thought it would after all this time. The grief washed over her like a tidal waved and she barely managed to throw a hand over her mouth as a sob tore its way out of her throat.

“Doctor? What’s wrong?” Yaz’s concerned cry cut through the grief and the Doctor desperately tried to pull herself together. It seemed it was a losing battle. “What’s wrong with her? What have you done with her?” Yaz’s shouts were no doubt aimed at Omega, but the Doctor couldn’t get herself together enough to speak up yet.

“A lifetime of memories means a lifetime of emotions to relive alongside them. The Doctor’s life has not always been happy. Even more so in her past life.” Peylix explained through laboured breaths.

“So, she’s just having to relive that life in her head?” Graham asked.

“Yes. Give her time. She will get through it.”

“I’ve never seen her cry before.” Yaz said quietly, staring down at the Doctor and the tears streaming down the other woman’s face, falling from eyes that were staring out into the distance blankly.

When she finally shot upright, coming back to here and now, it was with a dazed expression. She began wiping frantically at her face, trying to rid herself of the tears.

“Ugh, gods.” She dug the heels of her palms into her eyes, taking in a watery sounding breath before she cursed softly, surprising herself when it came out in Old High Gallifreyan. The Fam all stared, none of them ever having heard the language before. Peylix’s laughter dissolving into a painful sounding coughing fit brough attention back to him and the Doctor rushed over to his side, “Peylix.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry old friend.” He was apologising through the painful hacks and the Doctor was desperate for him to relax, shaking her head as she spoke.

“It’s okay. Peylix, I forgive you. Calm yourself old friend. It’s all in the past. It’s okay.”

“I shall be honoured to be permitted to die with a friend at my side. I had stopped thinking myself worthy of either.”

><><><><><><

Getting Peylix and all of his equipment into the TARDIS took more time than the Doctor was altogether comfortable with considering their time limit. But they managed right as the meter on the console monitor hit red. The ride back through into their universe was even more bumpy than the one into it. The Doctor called out to them as she threw herself around the console, trying to explain.

“The Eye of Harmony is still a black hole at its centre. And those are used to things being pulled into them, only reason we’re being able to escape at all are those stabilisers. They’re holding open a little gap for the TARDIS to escape through.” The TARDIS gave another particularly violent shudder, and the Doctor continued in a slightly more frantic tone, “Also, since we’re bringing Peylix through, and Peylix is the one who’s will is keeping the universe together, it’s collapsing at a… frankly alarming rate behind us. But it’s fine.”

“How little a gap are we talking?” Graham asked, sounding slightly panicked.

“Uh,” She threw him a shaky expression, “Do you really want me to answer that?”

“Since you don’t wanna tell me, I’m just gonna say no and wish you good luck.” Graham said quickly, looking back to the pillar he was holding onto.

“Smart choice!” She called over to him, stumbling as the ship gave a particularly violent veer to the side. Peylix let out a pained groan at the feel of it and, watching as the Doctor distractedly looked over to him – causing another bump, Yaz made her way over to the man, dropping herself down next to him in order to ensure that he was alright and that his comfort could be looked to whilst they were in flight.

><><><><><><

“Peylix!” When they finally came to a stop, parked in the vortex for the time being, the Doctor raced to the man’s side, crouching next to him and slipping her hand into his. Yaz backing away to allow the two their privacy.

“The equipment is keeping me alive. Please.” She nodded sadly, squeezing his arm with her free hand before she started to get to her feet.

The Fam watched, standing around the console, as Omega reached for the Doctor’s hand before she could pull too far away. He motioned for her to come closer and she leaned in despite her confusion. They couldn’t hear what was shared between the two. When the Doctor pulled back, she had tears in her eyes. She nodded to him and reached out the hand not in his to reach the equipment at his side, flicking at a series of the buttons. She hesitated at the final one, Omega gave her hand a squeeze and she turned the final switch. Peylix gasped in a shallow sounding breath, body seizing before he went still, the hand holding hers going limp and they knew he was dead. The Doctor took in a shuddery sounding breath, her body posture slumping as the only friend she had left from back then died.

“What did he tell you?” Yaz asked, ignoring Graham’s scalding nudge and glance. It took the Doctor a second or two before she answered, her voice quiet.

“He told me co-ordinates.” The Doctor pushed herself up to her feet.

“Co-ordinates to what?” Ryan asked.

“I… I think he’s told me how to find the way back.”

“The way back to what?” Yaz asked next and the Doctor turned to them, her eyes wide, looking visibly startled over the information. She swallowed, stopping for a moment to think.

“To where I was found as a child. I was found near a portal, a gateway of sorts. My mother always said it was lost. When she disappeared, I always thought she must have found it. Peylix was the only one who knew, and he never told me. Refused to say.”

“Your mother?” Yaz questioned, taking a hesitant step towards the Doctor.

“I’d forgotten. But now I remember. One last gift. My memories and my beginning.” The Doctor turned back to the still form of Peylix and crouched down next to him once again. She reached out a hand to touch the mask that had protected her old friend’s subconscious for all these years. She heaved out a heavy sigh and with slow but steady hands she reached for either side of the mask and pulled it away from the rest of the armour. The Fam all stared in shock as it revealed nothing beneath it. No person was there. Just empty air.

“What? How- Doctor, what the bloody hell happened to him?” Graham asked.

“He lost his corporeal form eons ago. The only thing keeping him alive was his own will. And that will power finally ran out.” She stood, the mask still held in her hands, staring down at the eyes of it, only recently remembered memories of their childhood together rising to the front of her mind.

“What is it that you remember now?” Yaz questioned.

“Everything. Everything that happened, from being found as a child, right up until I threw myself into the prime distributer of the looms.”

“The prime what-a-what?” Graham’s face scrunched up in confusion and the Doctor couldn’t help her amused hum as she finally headed back up towards the console and sat Omega’s mask on top of it before turning to them once more.

“The looms. A uh… pet project of Rassilon and Peylix at that time. My mother, and Rassilon, and Peylix , all were very interested in keeping the Time Lords alive. Repopulation is key to keeping a species going, but they believed that natural reproduction was beneath a higher species. The looms were created. Essentially artificial reproduction.”

“You mean like test tube babies?” Ryan asked, eyebrows furrowed in confusion and the Doctor’s face brightened in pride for a second, jabbing a finger towards him with a smile.

“ _Exactly_ like test tube babies. Go you. Anyway, they’d cherry pick the best bits of the parent’s DNA to create a fully formed person. You’d come out already partially grown. Maybe around 4 or 5? You’d have three years at home and then you’d be packed off to the academy from the age of 8 for the next few centuries.”

“You spent centuries in school?” Yaz asked, eyes wide and her face horror filled. The Doctor laughed again.

“How’d you think I feel? I had to do it twice. Thank the gods that I didn’t remember when I did the second time around. I probably would’ve run away even sooner.”

“And the distributer? What was that?”

“It was sort of like a big gene pool. Bits and pieces all floating around in one big farm… thing. I don’t even know how to explain it. But me jumping in there, I got sort of… ripped apart. All the way down to a micro level. I don’t really remember it. I remember jumping in and then… waking up. It’s strange, I remember my life that came after through two sets of eyes. The one living it and the one watching me live it from inside my own head.”

“And you think the co-ordinates that Omega gave you will show you how to get to where you came from?” Yaz asked and the Doctor nodded, the nerves clear on her face. Yaz grinned, “Then what are you waiting for? Let’s go!”

><><><><><><

The tower was somehow even larger than the Doctor remembered it being. The swirling patterns of the portal above threw energy out like a gust of wind through a narrow alley. When it hit her, she could feel it rattling around in her bones and she shuddered accordingly.

“I’m taking you home.” She said, her voice quiet yet firm. The humans all turned to her, surprise on all their faces.

“What?” Yaz took a step towards her, “You can’t do that. We want to help you.”

“You let us help you find Omega. Why won’t you let us help you now?” Ryan asked, and the Doctor winced slightly, giving them apologetic looks.

“I know. But this is different. I genuinely don’t know what to expect. This might kill me. I don’t know what’s going to be on the other side. _If_ anything’s on the other side.”

“All the more reason to let us come along.” Yaz pleaded and the other woman sighed heavily.

“Yaz-”

“You don’t get to just drop us off at home and disappear again! I won’t let you!”

“Enough Yaz!” The Doctor snapped and the human flinched back. Her voice got quiet again, “I will not let anyone else throw their lives away for me. Not again. Not even if you, for some reason, think you want to.”

“Stop making decisions for me. This isn’t your choice.” Yaz snapped, angry, her temper rising to the surface and the Doctor just shook her head.

“You don’t know enough to make decisions for yourself.”

“And who’s fault is that?!”

“Yaz! You don’t know what you’re asking. _I_ don’t even know.” The Doctor finally snapped back, throwing out a hand in frustration. Graham and Ryan both watched, both clearly uncomfortable with the ensuing argument, both also slightly more on the fence than Yaz was. “Going through _that_ ” She pointed up to the portal at the top of the tower, “might be a one-way trip. I will _not_ let you do that to yourself.”

“Well, what about _you_? What about what you’re doing to yourself? What’s the rest of the universe supposed to do if you disappear? What are _we_ supposed to do?”

“What about _me_? Why does the rest of the universe have a say in my knowing my past? I have spent almost 3000 years carrying the weight of this universe on my shoulders, pushing back the forces of darkness. Why _can’t_ I do this? Why do I have to live the rest of my life in service to it? Especially when I have my own mysteries to solve. I _need_ to _know_ where I came from.” Yaz faltered in her argument for a moment, clearly searching for the words to bring the Doctor around to her way of thinking.

“Of course, you’re allowed to, I’m not trying to stop you, but I don’t want you to have to do it alone.” The Doctor let out a heavy sigh, letting out her breath slowly, her anger slipping away into a frustrated sadness. She looked over all three of them, tears gathering slowly in her eyes as her shoulders dropped.

“Yaz, the last person who travelled with me before I met you three got turned into a Cyberman because I was too late to save her. The one before that tried _so hard_ to act like me that it got her killed. She took a chronolock from someone, trying to be as smart as I always am, and it got her killed. I spent four and a half _billion years_ getting her back, and all I succeeded in doing is bringing her back without a heartbeat. Before that, Amy and Rory’s daughter got taken from them to be raised as an assassin to kill _me_. They lost their only daughter so someone could get back at me. And then they were both trapped back in time. Stuck in a fixed point by the Weeping Angels. Trapped away from everyone they ever loved. Their friends and their family. Me. Donna, I had to wipe her mind before it burned. Martha, her entire family was trapped and tortured for an entire year by the Master while she travelled the Earth on foot to save everyone on her own. Rose, trapped in a parallel universe. I could go on, and on, and on.” The tears slipped down her cheeks, the Fam’s eyes all watering as well. The Doctor stepped forward quickly, her hands reaching for Yaz’s face as she stared desperately at her, “Yaz, _please_ , don’t throw your life away. Not for me. Go home. Go and live a brilliant life. Don’t let me screw it up like I do for everyone else. I’m not worth it. Please, go home and let me let _someone_ escape from the chaos and death that surrounds me. I have two lifetimes worth of pain and loss inside my head, I cannot take anymore. Let me save you. Let me save someone.”

They fell silent, the Doctor’s expression pleading while Yaz just stared back at her. The men both watched, both standing with bated breaths, both unsure as to what they wanted to do. Ryan was certain he would really rather go home, and he knew his grandad would just follow him if he didn’t go. This was Yaz’s fight.

“No.” She grit her teeth and shook her head and the Doctor pulled away from her with a noise of frustration and Yaz reached out to her. “I can’t just let you go off on your own. You need someone there to watch your back.”

With her back to her, the Doctor took in heavy breath and let it out slowly, her shoulders slumping as if in defeat and she turned, nodding slowly. She threw a hand up, “Yeah. Yeah, alright.” She reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose and then looked to Graham and Ryan, “You too?” Both men glanced to each other, Ryan motioning his head for Graham to speak and the older man huffed slightly before looking back to the Doctor with a grimace and an apologetic expression.

“If it’s all the same to you Doc, I don’t think me, and Ryan will be coming along on this one.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s been the best time of my life Doc and if you do make it back, as I’m sure you will, you better come back and let us know, okay?” She nodded, giving him a soft smile.

“Course.” The Doctor stepped back towards the TARDIS, pushing open the doors before motioning them all inside. “Come on then, Sheffield. Let’s get you home.” Ryan and Graham both stepped inside, and the Doctor looked back to Yaz who’d planted herself on the spot with her arms crossed and a glare sent the Doctor’s way, “Yaz?”

“You’re not leaving me behind.” She informed the Time Lord firmly.

“You’ve made that very clear. But I don’t want to leave you here. With my driving who knows if I’ll make it back?” When the joke fell flat the Doctor sobered slightly, “Yaz, if you don’t want to leave the TARDIS when we land, then there’s not much I can do to force you out, is there?”

Yaz seemed to relent slightly at that, her crossed arms falling to her sides. “I suppose.” The Doctor stepped back, motioning for Yaz to step into the TARDIS and the human did so after another suspicious look thrown the Doctor’s way. The flight back to Sheffield was quieter than the TARDIS had been in a while. And smoother. A lot smoother. The Fam all looked to her with questioning expressions.

“Maybe I’m wrong here, but that flight felt a lot easier than usual.” Graham piped up and the Doctor smiled, reaching up a hand to brush it against the central column.

“I raised her. Grew her up from a little seedling. That bond is open again.” The Doctor laughed softly at the playful chime she could hear clearly in her head, “I used to always wonder why she was so attached to me. It was unusual. Usually, it never happened when someone used an older model that they hadn’t raised. Now I understand. I did.”

“I suppose a lot of things are gonna make more sense for you now.” Ryan suggested and the Doctor threw him a grin.

“Or maybe it’ll make less sense. Either way, we’ll just have to wait and see.”

><><><><><

“Guess this is it.” Ryan said softly, hesitantly glancing towards the doors once they’d landed.

“You better let us know that you’re alright when you get back. Cause you will get back.” Graham said, before turning to speak to Yaz, her smiling at him and stepping forward so he could draw her into a tight hug. He murmured to her, for only her to hear, “I told you that I thought you were the strongest person I know, and I do believe that, but you don’t know what you’re walking into this time, so please take care of yourself love. Call us, as soon as you’re back.”

“I will.” She pulled back from him with a reassuring smile, “You don’t have to worry about me.”

“You won’t be able to stop me until you’re back home safe and sound.” Yaz’s smile grew into something more touched and she finally turned to Ryan to let him pull her into a hug as well.

“It’s gonna be weird not travelling together anymore.” Ryan said with a small smile as the two of them pulled away from one another.

“I know. But I bet you’re gonna love being at home again.”

“Finally get a lie in.” He joked and Graham piped up, joining in.

“And regular mealtime.” The group all laughed in amusement and the Doctor grinned, playfully grumbling about humans and their strict schedules getting in the way of adventures. She finally stepped forward to them and Graham addressed her softly, “Guess this is it Doc.”

“I’m gonna miss you guys.” She took in a deep breath before speaking.

“You too.” Ryan said, before giving her shoulder a playful nudge, “Go learn who you are. I hope you find out.” She smiled, reaching up to give his wrist a squeeze before he could pull it away.

“Thank you, Ryan.” She looked to Graham and the older man pulled her into a hug before she could say anything and, thought wasn’t much of a hugger this time around, she returned the gesture with a tight squeeze. He pulled away, giving her a nod.

“Bye Doc.” He looked to Yaz, nodding to her as well as he back up towards the doors, “Bye Yaz.” With that the two men turned and, with one last glance each backwards to the TARDIS, they stepped outside its doors. An awkward atmosphere settling between the two women still inside and the Doctor turned to walk to the other side of the console.

“Why are you trying to get us all to leave? Don’t you enjoy travelling with us?” Yaz questioned with a raised eyebrow, trying to catch her eye as she moved.

“Course I do! You’re my Fam.”

“Then why do you want us to leave? Why’d you make Ryan and Graham leave?” Yaz watched as the Doctor looked down at the console, clearly choosing to look at that rather than at her, “Is this something to do with the memories you’ve remembered?”

“Course it-”

“Don’t lie to me.” The Doctor faltered, unused to being called out this time around. She nodded, head ducking as thoughts of both Lee and her mother awash in her brain.

“I’m tired of losing people. I remember the first. I remember how much it hurt.” Yaz rounded the console to perch on the edge of it next to the Doctor. The Time Lord turned slowly and matched the human’s position with a soft sigh.

“Who were they?” Yaz asked, giving the Doctor’s shoulder a nudge gently with her own.

“You met him, actually. We all did.”

“Really? Who was it?”

“Lee. Do you remember Ruth? We met them both that day with the Judoon, and you lot meeting Jack. Well, Ruth was me. I’d turned myself human.”

“You can do that?” Yaz stared at her in shock.

“Yeah, it’s possible.”

“ _Why_?”

“I was being hunted down by the Time Lords. Rassilon had blamed me for what happened to Peylix, used it to make me Galifrey’s most wanted.”

“What was that like?”

“I had to turned myself human. Take from that what you will.” The Doctor stood then, moving to start the return flight. She hesitated with her hand on the take-off lever, looking back up to her companion, and Yaz gave her soft reassuring smile.

“Let’s go then, get a shift on.” The Doctor’s her face fell suddenly into something sad before she spoke.

“I’m so sorry about this Yaz.” The Doctor pulled the take-off lever as Yaz looked to her in confusion.

“Sorry about what?” She barely got the words out before she realised what was happening. The TARDIS was taking off, but she wasn’t being brought with it. Sheffield started to come into view as the TARDIS got more transparent. “No!” She cried out in anger and alarm, betrayal settling in her gut and spreading across her entire being. The Doctor’s apologetic expression was the last thing she saw before she was left standing alone near her flat in Sheffield. “Doctor!” She clenched her fists, angry tears pricking at her eyes as she yelled out the woman’s name into nothing.

><><><><><

Getting into the tower wasn’t difficult. The doors to get inside were stiff from age but a good few shoves with her shoulder got it opened. It creaked open, her whole weight put into getting it so, causing a billowing cloud of dust across the room. The energy from the portal got stronger the further up the huge spiralling staircase she got.

It felt like the energy from the gateway would swallow her whole and she wasn’t even in the room yet as she reached the top. She stood in the doorway, bracing herself against it, her hair whipping across her face and her jacket billowing out behind her.

She pushed forward, her arms still up, protecting her face. Grimacing like she was pushing through a snowstorm. The closer she got the harder it got to move. She was having to close her eyes against the light of the portal as it seemed to increase in brightness as well as force. It felt like it was trying to force her backwards, she was having to lean in against it.

When she finally reached the centre, it was like everything stopped. Not just the light and the energy, but the whole world around her shrouded into darkness and silence. She could hear nothing and see nothing around her. She could feel her hearts beginning to race in her chest, but she couldn’t even hear the blood racing in her ears.

She whirled around in a circle, trying to find her way out. The way she’d come in was gone. Her eyes widened. She stepped forward, trying to see if it was just invisible. Her footsteps made no sounds. There was no exit. Just nothing once again. She yelled out in alarm, but no sound came out. Panic rushed over her. Everything was so dark and still that it was almost difficult to breathe. The Doctor started to run. Racing through the darkness around her, unable to tell if she was even actually moving.

But then, as she dropped to her knees, she looked up and saw the light shining ahead. She pushed herself up and shielded her eyes and walked through the light.


End file.
